An elite military unit said it had taken power in Madagascar on Tuesday, after the country’s parliament impeached president Andry Rajoelina after weeks of anti-government protests.

Rajoelina, who said on Monday in a Facebook Live video that he had gone into hiding after attempts to kill him, had refused demands to step down, but the demonstrators won the backing of the influential Capsat unit at the weekend.

On Tuesday, the presidency posted a statement saying there had been an “attempted coup d’état”.

It continued: “The president of the republic remains fully in office and is ensuring the maintenance of constitutional order and national stability.”

Rajoelina has not been seen in public in Madagascar for several days. He reportedly fled the Indian Ocean island on a French military aircraft on Sunday night, after the Capsat military unit said on Saturday that it would not shoot at protesters.

While no order for the military to shoot civilians had been made public, the gendarmerie, a police force controlled by the Ministry of Defence, killed demonstrators during the early days of youth-led protests that began on 25 September.

The marches started in protest against water and electricity outages and quickly grew to calling for radical political reform and the president’s resignation.

Col Michael Randrianirina, the leader of Capsat, which is short for Corps d’administration des personnels et des services administratifs et techniques, told reporters at a government building in the capital Antananarivo on Tuesday that the military would form a council of officers from the army, gendarmerie military police and police, while a prime minister would be appointed to “quickly” form a civilian government.

Randrianirina said in the statement: “Perhaps in time [the council] will include senior civilian advisers. It is this committee that will carry out the work of the presidency … At the same time, after a few days, we will set up a civilian government.”

“We have taken power,” Randrianirina told Agence-France Presse, after reading out the statement.

Minutes earlier, the lower house of parliament had voted to impeach Rajoelina for desertion of duty. The official presidency Facebook account posted a statement saying that the parliamentary session was “devoid of any legal basis”. The president had dissolved parliament just hours before in a bid to rescue his position.

Capsat’s coup marked a dramatic fall from grace for Rajoelina, a 51-year-old former DJ who was himself brought to power by the military regiment, a unit that controls military logistics, in 2009, after street protests against the high cost of living and Rajoelina’s dismissal as mayor of Antananarivo by his predecessor as president, Marc Ravalomanana.

Rajoelina was initially president until 2014. He returned to power in 2019 and was re-elected in 2023, in a vote marred by allegations of rigging.

Madagascar is one of the world’s poorest countries, with a GDP per capita of just $545 last year, according to World Bank data. The island is rich in natural resources, including vanilla and precious gems, which campaigners say have been exploited by officials and corrupt businesspeople. The country ranked 140 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2024 corruption perceptions index.

The United Nations said 22 people were killed in the first few days of the protest by security forces and during violence and looting by “individuals and gangs not associated with the protesters”. Rajoelina initially denied anyone had been killed, then said that 12 “looters and vandals” had died.

The protests were coordinated at first by Gen Z Madagascar, a leaderless group of young people. They use Discord and Signal privately, while posting publicly on Instagram and Facebook.

On Saturday, Capsat said it would not fire at protesters and called on other parts of the military to join forces with it. That afternoon, Capsat soldiers drove out of their barracks in southern Antananarivo, accompanied by thousands of cheering protesters, to the symbolic 13 May Square outside city hall.

On Sunday, Capsat said it was taking control of the military and appointed a new leader of the armed forces. The gendarmerie also fell in line, saying there had been “faults and excesses” in its response to the protests.

Also on Sunday, Gen Demosthene Pikulas, the head of Capsat, was installed as chief of the army staff during a ceremony at the army headquarters attended by armed forces minister Manantsoa Deramasinjaka Rakotoarivelo. “I give him my blessing,” the minister said of Pikulas.

Pikulas said to journalists after the ceremony that events in Madagascar had been “unpredictable”, adding: “The army has a responsibility to restore calm and peace throughout Madagascar.”

The Gen Z Madagascar movement celebrated the coup on Tuesday. “It’s a great day to be alive!!” it posted on its Instagram stories, followed by videos of people celebrating.

“I’m happy personally, because for now the army has been with us, the people, and it knows what we want and that’s what they’re doing right now,” said an 18-year-old activist who helps to run the Gen Z Madagascar social media accounts.

He continued: “So the president is calling it a coup, but he’s the one that left the country. He’s the one that came to power with a coup as well, so it’s very hypocritical.”

However, a fellow activist said he was “50:50” about the military’s intervention. “It was a must, because as you know, Madagascar was a very corrupt system and I’m happy that this is finally the end of this corrupt system,” he said.

“But … I don’t really know what intentions the military group have, so I prefer to stay on my guard and see what they want to do and what they are going to do.”

Jean-Luc Raharimanana, 58, a Malagasy novelist and playwright, also celebrated Rajoelina’s overthrow: “It’s a utopia in progress. I truly hope the result lives up to this magnificent struggle.”

Agence-France Presse contributed to this report

The Cameroonian opposition leader Issa Tchiroma Bakary has declared himself the winner of the 12 October presidential election and called on the incumbent, Paul Biya, to accept the end of his 43-year rule.

“Our victory is clear, it must be respected,” Tchiroma said in a video statement on Facebook with the national flag in the background, before directly addressing 92-year-old Biya: “We call on the regime in power to show greatness and to honour the truth of the ballot box with a long-awaited gesture: that phone call of congratulations, which will demonstrate the political maturity of our nation and the future strength of our democracy.”

Elecam, the Cameroonian electoral commission, has yet to release the results, which are expected at the latest by 26 October, after validation by the constitutional council.

Supporters on both sides are claiming victory based on images circulating on social media of blackboards and papers tallying the results. While it is permitted to publish tally sheets from individual polling stations, it is illegal to announce the overall result of the vote before the constitutional council. “This is the red line that must not be crossed,” the territorial administration minister, Paul Atanga Nji, told a press conference on Sunday.

The election, contested by nine opposition candidates, was conducted in a single-round format where the candidate with the most votes wins. More than 8 million citizens were eligible to vote but the turnout remains unknown. Some of the other candidates have already congratulated Tchiroma.

A longtime Biya ally and former government spokesperson, Tchiroma, 76, broke ranks by resigning in June, and emerged as the leading opposition candidate. He heads the Front for the National Salvation of Cameroon (FSNC) and is backed by the Union for Change, a coalition of opposition parties.

“A country cannot exist in the service of one man,” Tchiroma wrote in an open letter announcing his candidacy. “It must live in the service of its people.”

In the 2018 presidential election, opposition challenger Maurice Kamto declared himself the winner the day after the vote. He was subsequently arrested. His supporters’ rallies were dispersed with teargas and water cannon and dozens were detained. Some are still in jail.

Biya is only the second head of state to lead Cameroon since independence from France in 1960. He has ruled with an iron fist, repressing all political and armed opposition, and holding on to power despite social upheaval, economic disparity and separatist violence.

Tchiroma’s election manifesto promised a transition period of three to five years to rebuild the country, which he said Biya had destroyed.

The incumbent has governed in absentia for years, partly from Switzerland, where he and his wife, Chantal, are regular visitors. There are reports that presidential decrees are regularly signed on Biya’s behalf by Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the secretary general of the presidency.

Born in Garoua, in northern Cameroon, Tchiroma went from being imprisoned for his alleged involvement in a failed 1984 coup against Biya to being a minister. In one pre-election interview, Tchiroma said that in two decades as minister he had never met the president face-to-face.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

South Sudan’s opposition and observers have warned that the prosecution of the country’s suspended vice-president, Riek Machar, risks jeopardising a peace agreement that ended a devastating civil war and plunging the country into full-scale conflict once again.

On 11 September, Machar was charged with murder, treason, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes in connection with a deadly attack by the White Army rebel group on a government army garrison in Nasir county in the country’s north-east. President Salva Kiir then suspended him from his post.

The prosecution is the culmination of a series of developments this year triggered by the Nasir ambush that has escalated a longstanding feud between Kiir and Machar and raised concern for the fragile peace in the country.

In March, the White Army, a group of community militias that fought alongside Machar’s opposition forces during the civil war, overran a base in the county belonging to the country’s military, the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF). The militia said it had acted in self-defence.

A UN crew member and at least 27 SSPDF soldiers were killed in gunfire a few days later, as a UN helicopter tried to evacuate troops from the county in Upper Nile state.

The government responded by carrying out aerial bombardments in Nasir and neighbouring areas, killing and injuring civilians. Human Rights Watch accused the military of using incendiary weapons.

Authorities also arrested more than 22 political and military personnel aligned with Machar’s party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), and put him and his wife, Angela Teny, under house arrest. He was accused of trying to stir up rebellion.

Kiir also reshuffled his cabinet and security personnel in the transitional government, which was created by the peace agreement, including by removing officials aligned to Machar.

In May, he promoted second vice-president Benjamin Bol Mel, a US-sanctioned businessman who is part of his inner circle, as his party’s deputy chairperson, raising fears in the opposition that Kiir was grooming him as his successor.

The latest twist of charging Machar has further inflamed tensions.

“Within a very short period of time, I think I will be in the bushes of South Sudan because this is what the regime has forced us to do,” Pal Mai Deng, SPLM-IO spokesperson and one of 20 people charged alongside Machar, said from self-exile. “Technically speaking, the peace agreement is very much abrogated by the president and his tribal court. No one is left with the room to say that the agreement is still holding.”

Daniel Akech, a senior analyst for South Sudan at the International Crisis Group, described the prosecution as “the last spike in escalations”. “This is actually a big escalation in dismantling the agreement, but not only that – putting Machar behind bars in court is creating emotional tensions, and it’s dividing the country,” he said.

Machar and Kiir were both members of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army guerilla movement that fought for independence from Sudan, which it gained in 2011, with Kiir becoming president and Machar first vice-president.

South Sudan descended into a bloody civil war in 2013 after Kiir fired Machar and later accused him and others of planning a coup. Machar founded a rebel faction, SPLM-IO, and both groups engaged in fighting that killed more than 400,000 people and displaced nearly half the country’s population. The conflict was marked by reports of ethnic cleansing, sexual violence and conscription of children.

It exposed ethnic tensions in the country and was largely fought along ethnic lines – with most of the fighting occurring between Kiir’s majority Dinka community and Machar’s Nuer, the second-largest ethnic group in the country.

In 2018, Kiir and Machar signed a peace deal brokered by Uganda and Sudan, ending the civil war; creating a unity government of the two parties; and returning Machar to the vice-presidency. But implementation of the agreement has barely taken off, as the two parties constantly collide over power-sharing.

Selam Demissie, researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, said the risk of a return to civil war was “huge”.

“In South Sudan, the one document that’s holding the country together is that 2018 peace agreement,” she said. “Anything that’s done outside of the agreement or the consent of these opposing parties can amount to violation of this peace agreement.”

She said the moves also risk sending a message to other opposition parties – which also have aligned militias – that they may also be under threat.

The Guardian has approached the government spokesperson for comment.

The fighting between militia and government forces that started early this year in Upper Nile has continued and spilled over to five other states where there have been pockets of fighting. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed.

About 300,000 South Sudanese have fled the country so far this year, largely due to escalating conflict, the UN Commission on Human Rights said on Monday. “Armed clashes are occurring on a scale not seen since a cessation of hostilities was signed in 2017, with civilians bearing the brunt of human rights violations and displacements,” the UN said in a statement.

The fighting has also hindered access for humanitarian assistance. “The situation is alarming and there’s a lot of suffering,” said John Garang Akot, head of programme implementation at Plan International South Sudan. “We call on the warring parties to reach an agreement so that the affected communities can enjoy peace.”

Last month, the UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk warned the country was on the brink of renewed war and urged the government to ensure due process and a fair trial for Machar and his co-accused.

Deng, who was dismissed as water resources and irrigation minister in August, called on regional and international communities to intervene “to save the country from descending into another chaos and political disorder”.

“Everyone in the country is tired of war,” he said. “In the last years of wars that we have fought, none of us has benefited. No one has won.”

The Confederation of African Football’s general secretary, Véron Mosengo-Omba, has been accused of running the organisation as his “proprietorship” and creating a toxic culture of fear where employees are fired for speaking out against him.

Several former and current members of staff have told the Guardian there is an atmosphere of intimidation and paranoia at the Caf headquarters in Cairo, where Mosengo-Omba is accused of sidelining colleagues and silencing whistleblowers.

Those sacked include Hannan Nur – the former head of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) – who accused Mosengo-Omba in a damning report last year of “impeding” members of her department from performing their duties and, among other claims, of breaching internal governance and auditing regulations. It was later claimed by Caf’s audit and compliance committee that there had been unauthorised interference from Mosengo-Omba in an attempt to “whitewash” the subsequent investigation.

“Anyone who dares to speak up – anyone who is part of the report – is terminated, without cause, without any due process,” said one senior employee who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. “We live in an organisation that deliberately hides the truth so as not to embarrass the secretary general and his entourage. Everything is political now.”

Abiola Ijasanmi, the former Caf chief operating officer, was dismissed in April after making allegations similar to Nur’s against the general secretary in another report. Noumandiez Doué, the head of refereeing, and Raúl Chipenda, the director of development, were sacked in August.

“We have clear instructions to control information and prevent certain things from leaking out; that’s how it is,” said one communications officer who did not want to be named. “When the two reports started to leak, they hunted down the mole – that was their concern rather than sorting out the issues.”

Employees claim the independent committees are no longer independent, with key decisions “manipulated” or “influenced” by Mosengo-Omba’s office. “Véron and some other directors are running Caf as their own proprietorship,” a former senior staff member said. “What is even more sad is the fact that the committees do not function. The independent committees are not independent. They’re influenced. Véron always tries to manipulate the decision and he’s always influencing them.”

Others allege that staff linked to Mosengo-Omba can now make decisions outside their departments, breaching Caf statutes and internal procedures. Multiple sources also accused Mosengo-Omba, a longstanding friend and former university colleague of the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, of favouritism and abuse of office, claiming he has appointed associates and compatriots from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to senior positions for which they were not qualified.

“He abuses his office to have people from his home country and people he knows in positions that they’re not qualified for,” another senior staff member said.
“Caf is no longer pursuing a policy of development, but rather serving individual interests.”

The allegations echo claims made in the GRC’s report last year that was submitted to Caf’s executive committee this year, which described a “stressful, unethical and unprofessional environment” under Mosengo-Omba’s leadership.

At the Caf general congress last week in the DRC, it announced profits of $9.48m for the 2023-24 financial year, which it said “reflects a strong increase in commercial revenues, driven by the growing global appeal of African football, the addition of new sponsors, and the implementation of strict financial controls by the Caf leadership”. But sources have alleged that Caf’s finances are fragile despite public claims of stability.

“The audit and compliance committee tried to raise the issue, but [Mosengo-Omba’s] modus operandi is to silence you or you’re out,” one insider said.

The alleged misuse of Fifa Forward funds – development money intended for African football projects – remains a particular concern. Staff claim that Mosengo-Omba has taken “sole control” of the funds, leading to irregularities that have not been independently audited.

Staff have also alleged that president Patrice Motsepe, who was re-elected unopposed for a second term in March, has rarely set foot in the Caf headquarters. “Motsepe is never here,” one senior employee said. “In four years of his mandate, he only came twice and met the staff once. He doesn’t have a clue what’s going on inside his own confederation.”

Mosengo-Omba is widely regarded as the de facto head of Caf, consolidating power over day-to-day operations, even though the most senior position is held by Motsepe. Mosengo-Omba turns 66 this month, the statutory retirement age under Caf’s regulations, but has indicated he will remain in post and relocate to Morocco for the men’s Africa Cup of Nations that starts in December. “He should not continue working beyond the 15th of October,” said one official.

Nur has filed a case for wrongful dismissal at the Cairo Regional Centre for International Arbitration that is expected to be heard in the coming months.

Caf did not respond to detailed questions about the allegations. Mosengo-Omba has previously denied wrongdoing in relation to the allegations made in the GRC report, insisting he has “acted with full integrity” and that “independent investigations will expose the falsity” of the claims.

Motsepe has expressed “total confidence” in Mosengo-Omba and said Caf was awaiting the findings of an independent inquiry set up this year to look into the GRC report’s allegations. However, for many within the organisation, the damage to morale and credibility is done.

“I feel very sorry for Caf and African football,” one long-serving employee said. “We are no longer pursuing development, only protecting people’s personal power.”

Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina, is reported to have fled the country on a French military aircraft, hours before he was scheduled to address the people.

French state radio RFI reported on Monday that the president, who also has French citizenship, had been flown out of the capital, Antananarivo, after a deal with President Emmanuel Macron. It added that he may have headed for Dubai.

He had been due to speak to the nation at 7pm (1600 GMT), according to a statement from the presidency on Facebook.

Rajoelina, 51, was first president from 2009 to 2014 before returning to power in 2023. He was increasingly isolated after losing the support of a key army unit that joined thousands of youths activists known as “Gen Z Madagascar” to protest against corruption and poverty. The movement had earlier turned down an invitation to meet him for dialogue and demanded his resignation.

People flooded a square in front of the Antananarivo city hall on Monday, waving flags and chanting slogans, some hanging off military vehicles as they arrived, according to Agence France-Presse reporters.

Among the demonstrators were soldiers from the elite Capsat unit, which played a major role in the 2009 coup during Rajoelina’s rise to the presidency after mass protests forced his predecessor Marc Ravalomanana out of power.

Also present were gendarmerie officers, accused of using heavy-handed tactics during the near-daily protests over more than two weeks. They admitted in a video statement to “faults and excesses” in their response.

At least 22 people were killed in the first days by security forces and others in violence sparked by criminal gangs and looters, according to the UN. But Rajoelina had disputed the toll, saying last week there were “12 confirmed deaths and all of these individuals were looters and vandals”.

On Saturday, some Capsat soldiers had posted a video to social media saying: “Let us join forces, military, gendarmes and police, and refuse to be paid to shoot our friends, our brothers and our sisters.”

“Close the gates, and await our instructions,” they added. “Do not obey orders from your superiors. Point your weapons at those who order you to fire on your comrades in arms because they will not take care of our families if we die.”

The showdown began following the arrest of two politicians on 19 September after planning a protest against the country’s chronic power and water outages.

Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina, is reported to have fled the country on a French military aircraft, hours before he was scheduled to address the people.

French state radio RFI reported on Monday that the president, who also has French citizenship, had been flown out of the capital, Antananarivo, after a deal with President Emmanuel Macron. It added that he may have headed for Dubai.

He had been due to speak to the nation at 7pm (1600 GMT), according to a statement from the presidency on Facebook.

Rajoelina, 51, was first president from 2009 to 2014 before returning to power in 2023. He was increasingly isolated after losing the support of a key army unit that joined thousands of youths activists known as “Gen Z Madagascar” to protest against corruption and poverty. The movement had earlier turned down an invitation to meet him for dialogue and demanded his resignation.

People flooded a square in front of the Antananarivo city hall on Monday, waving flags and chanting slogans, some hanging off military vehicles as they arrived, according to Agence France-Presse reporters.

Among the demonstrators were soldiers from the elite Capsat unit, which played a major role in the 2009 coup during Rajoelina’s rise to the presidency after mass protests forced his predecessor Marc Ravalomanana out of power.

Also present were gendarmerie officers, accused of using heavy-handed tactics during the near-daily protests over more than two weeks. They admitted in a video statement to “faults and excesses” in their response.

At least 22 people were killed in the first days by security forces and others in violence sparked by criminal gangs and looters, according to the UN. But Rajoelina had disputed the toll, saying last week there were “12 confirmed deaths and all of these individuals were looters and vandals”.

On Saturday, some Capsat soldiers had posted a video to social media saying: “Let us join forces, military, gendarmes and police, and refuse to be paid to shoot our friends, our brothers and our sisters.”

“Close the gates, and await our instructions,” they added. “Do not obey orders from your superiors. Point your weapons at those who order you to fire on your comrades in arms because they will not take care of our families if we die.”

The showdown began following the arrest of two politicians on 19 September after planning a protest against the country’s chronic power and water outages.

Madagascar’s president said an “attempt to seize power illegally and by force” was under way, as an elite military unit that joined protesters on the streets on Saturday announced it was taking over the army.

The Capsat unit’s intervention comes after weeks of youth-led protests, which started on 25 September against water and electricity shortages and expanded to calling for the resignation of the president, Andry Rajoelina, an end to corruption and radical overhaul of the political system.

Rajoelina said he was “in the country … managing national affairs”, in a statement released on Sunday morning. The newly appointed prime minister, Ruphin Fortunat Zafisambo, had said on state television on Saturday night that the government was “fully ready to listen and engage in dialogue with all factions – youth, unions or the military”.

Rajoelina said: “The presidency of the republic wishes to inform the nation and the international community that an attempt to seize power illegally and by force, contrary to the constitution and to democratic principles, is currently under way.”

Soldiers from Capsat , which brought Rajoelina to power in a coup in 2009, said on Sunday morning that they were taking command of the military, according to a videoed statement shared by local news organisations. It was not immediately clear whether the rest of the military was submitting to Capsat’s control on the Indian Ocean island of about 32 million people.

On Saturday, Capsat said it would not fire on protesters and called on the rest of the military to “join forces” in refusing. Late in the afternoon, members of the unit left heir base in Soanierana district, in the south of the capital, Antananarivo, driving in armoured vehicles to the symbolic May 13 Square, about 3 miles to the north, accompanied by thousands of cheering protesters.

A Capsat general said on Saturday that one of their soldiers had been killed by the gendarmerie, police under the command of the defence ministry, and a journalist had been shot in the buttocks. The UN said at least 22 people were killed at the start of the protests in September, but Rajoelina disputed this last week, saying 12 “looters and vandals” had died.

The protests were initially coordinated by Gen Z Madagascar, a leaderless group of young people who had been inspired by similar “gen Z” protests in Indonesia and Nepal, where the government was overthrown.

Rajoelina fired his government on 29 September in response to the initial demonstrations. However, Gen Z Madagascar rejected this as insufficient, calling for the resignation of the president, as well as the leader of parliament and constitutional court judges, while protesters on the streets continued to shout, “Miala Rajoelina!” (Leave Rajoelina!).

Some young activists expressed concern on Saturday about Capsat’s intervention, with one calling the soldiers, and opposition politicians who joined them in May 13 Square, “dangerous”.

Madagascar is one of the world’s poorest countries, with a GDP per capita of just $545 last year, according to the World Bank. The precious gem- and vanilla-rich nation was ranked 140 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2024 corruption perceptions index.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

In a corner of the new Museum of West African Art, visitors can marvel at a sample display of the cultural treasures that adorned the royal palace that once stood in its place: a proud cockerel, a plaque with three mighty warriors, a bust of a king with a glorious beaded collar.

The artefacts, collectively known as the Benin bronzes, were looted by British colonial forces who went on to burn down the palace in a punitive expedition in 1897. In the decades that followed they were scattered across collections in Europe and America.

Their return and public display inside the $25m (£19m) state-of-the-art museum in the city of Benin in Nigeria’s Edo state, co-funded by European governments and western enterprises, was to be the crowning moment of an almost century-long effort to reclaim Africa’s stolen art.

Yet when MOWAA opens its doors on 11 November, the only Benin bronzes on display will be clay replicas – a far cry from the “most comprehensive display [of Benin bronzes] in the world” touted by authorities when plans for the museum to become their home were announced in 2020.

About 150 original bronzes have been returned to Nigeria over the last five years, some on the initiative of private collections and some as acts of state by Germany and the Netherlands. For now, none are on public display.

If the looting of the original bronzes took place in the context of what has been called the “scramble for Africa”, as European nations raced to claim overseas territories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, restitution has in part resembled a scramble in reverse. Western actors tried to outbid each other to atone for their past, before authorities in Nigeria had settled old rivalries about what restitution precisely entailed.

“In the west, there was a race about who was going to be the first institution to restitute,” said MOWAA’s director and chair Phillip Ihenacho, without naming individual museums or governments. “And there was not enough of a focus on to whom they would be restituted to.

“I think that there was a well-intentioned effort that was focused very much around being seen to be a pioneer in this area. But a lot of people in the west failed to understand the complexities within those countries.”

Nigerian demands for the Benin bronzes’ return, first voiced in the 1930s, were widely shunned by western governments and institutions until 2007, when a consortium of European museums and Nigerian officials formed the Benin Dialogue group.

On the Nigerian side, the group included not just representatives of the federal Nigerian government, but also of Edo state, where the kingdom of Benin was once located, and of Ewuare II, the descendant of the royal family that once owned the bronzes, known as the Oba of Benin.

Which of these three parties were entitled to the bronzes upon their return has historically been a bone of contention. The Oba has argued that since they were looted from the palace, they should be returned to the descendants and not to Edo state.

European participants in the discussions were of the impression that the conflict on the Nigerian side had been settled.

Race to return

In November 2019, the group invited Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye to come up with plans for a new museum where the returned treasures could be stored and put on public display. Still, to the frustration of officials in Nigeria and activists in Europe, there were no concrete announcements on physical returns.

The spring of 2021 was to provide a sudden step-change. In a March interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the director of Berlin’s newly opened Humboldt Forum let slip that the museum was considering leaving symbolic empty spaces where it had intended to display Benin bronzes from its collection, with the originals returning to Nigeria.

The comment surprised German government officials, who were in west Africa to discuss repatriations with their Nigerian counterparts, and set high expectations among the public and other organisations.

A flurry of activity followed: days later, Aberdeen University in Scotland announced it would also return a pillaged bronze. Then similar declarations were made by the Horniman museum in London, Cambridge University, New York’s Met and the Rhode Island School of Design’s art museum.

Museum officials suggest the pace of these developments was also fanned by the Nigerian cultural heritage agency, whose representatives were jetting around the world to strike return deals.

In December 2022, a German state delegation travelled to Nigeria with 21 bronzes packaged in crates in the belly of the government plane, an initiative pushed for by the then foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, of the German Green party, who was eager to make her mark a year into office. “It could and should have been a lot less hectic,” said one official directly involved in preparing the trip.

At a handover ceremony in Abuja, Baerbock said Germany was proud to co-finance MOWAA to the tune of €6.8m (£6m), and “invited” her counterpart to exhibit the bronzes there. It was a grand, pathos-filled moment but underneath the surface, tensions that the Europeans believed had been laid to rest were bubbling up again. Present at the ceremony were ministers of the federal Nigerian government and representatives of Edo state, but not the Oba.

There was a personal flavour to the animosity: Godwin Obaseki, the then governor of Edo state, is a direct descendant of a former palace official who had been named Benin prime minister by the British after the punitive expedition and is still seen in some circles as a betrayer of the kingdom. Media outlets loyal to the palace accused Obaseki of having set up MOWAA in order to hijack the restitution process, calling for its occupancy licence to be revoked.

The tussle over the bronzes was ended in an abrupt fashion on 23 March 2023, when Nigeria’s federal government announced in an official gazette that the Oba of Benin was the stolen treasures’ rightful owner and custodian, and that they must be stored within his residence in Benin City unless the royal family decided otherwise.

The move caused howls of outrage among those in Europe who had been sceptical of the restitution in the first place. Centre-right German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called it “a fiasco”, suggesting that the bronzes would be locked away in the Oba’s private residence with no access for the public.

This is unlikely to be the case: a former cultural centre adjacent to the Oba’s residence is rumoured to be earmarked as a designated future museum. “The new name will be Benin Royal museum and this is where they plan to store the bronzes,” said Benin-born Mercy Imiegha, director of Lagos-based Nomadic Art Gallery.

At any rate, inter-Nigerian disputes should not deflect from the urgent need for the bronzes’ return, say restitution advocates. “The Benin bronzes in German museums would never have found their way to Europe if British forces hadn’t invaded the Benin Kingdom and sacked the royal palace,” said Barbara Plankensteiner, director of Hamburg’s Museum am Rothenbaum and co-spokesperson of the Benin Dialogue group. “We are looking at the largest theft of a royal treasure in history. There was a moral imperative for them to be returned to Africa with no strings attached.”

Andreas Goergen, a former secretary general of the German Federal Ministry for Culture and the Media, said: “Dealing with the art objects of traditional rulers is difficult for any republic. Germany took 100 years to reach an agreement with the Hohenzollerns [the German imperial dynasty that was overthrown at the end of the first world war]. Nigeria took four to reach an agreement with the Oba of Benin. So, no reason to be snooty.”

“The Europeans can’t tell us what we should or shouldn’t do with the objects of our heritage,” said Toyin Akinosho, co-founder of the nonprofit Committee for Relevant Art, which organises the Lagos Book and Arts festival. “Can’t we hold conversations here too about programming of new culture spaces?”

MOWAA, meanwhile, has had to readjust. Originally supposed to be called the Edo Museum of West African Art, it decided to remove the name of the state to emphasise its impartiality.

“We had hoped that we would be able to provide support to the restitution effort by demonstrating that we have institutions in West Africa that have what the west would regard as world-class display and storage facilities,” said Ihenacho. “But we never were set up to be the exclusive Benin bronzes museum.”

One space will host an exhibition about the archaeological dig carried out on the MOWAA site with £3m in support from London’s British Museum, which still holds the largest single collection of looted Benin bronzes in the world.

A selection of about 100 artefacts will hint at the story of the kingdom of Benin and its dissolution. “Some of them may well be made of bronze,” said Ihenacho. “But there will be nothing that was involved in the restitution process.”

Cameroon goes to the polls on Sunday for a presidential election with Paul Biya, already the world’s oldest head of state at the age of 92, the favourite to win an eighth term in power in the central African country.

A fractured opposition of 11 candidates is standing against Biya, who, despite his advanced age and declining health, has dismissed calls for him to retire.

“Our candidate is in great shape ... and he is capable of continuing what he has started,” Grégoire Owona, the labour minister and the ruling party’s secretary general, told French radio RFI in late September.

Many of the 7.8 million Cameroonians eligible to vote can remember no leader other than Biya, who has held on to the presidency with an iron fist since 1982.

The vote is taking place against the backdrop of political stagnation, a cost of living crisis and social unrest. Opposition parties have accused the electoral commission, Elections Cameroon, of being subservient to the ruling party, and the most credible opposition candidate, Maurice Kamto, has had his candidacy barred by the courts.

Other candidates include former ministers Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who recently defected from the presidential camp and has gathered several thousand people at meetings around the country, and Bello Bouba Maigari, who was Biya’s first prime minister in 1982. Observers say their individual campaigns lacked the cohesion necessary to mount a significant challenge to Biya’s long-standing rule.

Cameroon faces significant socioeconomic challenges; a third of the population lives on less than $2 (£1.50) a day, youth unemployment is rampant, and many young people have expressed disillusionment with the electoral process, citing a lack of economic opportunities and political representation.

Voter turnout has declined dramatically over the years, exacerbated by ongoing conflicts with jihadists in the Far North region and anglophone separatists in the west.

The latter crisis, which began in 2017, has led to thousands of deaths in the country’s two English-speaking regions and forcibly displaced over 700,000 people.

Kah Wallah, the leader of the Cameroon People’s party and founder of the Stand Up For Cameroon movement, said the anglophone crisis is one of the reasons why the movement has not supported elections since 2018. “We still believe it is unconscionable for the Biya regime to go to elections without ensuring the security of citizens in #NOSO,” she said, referring to a common abbreviation for Cameroon’s anglophone North-West and South-West regions.

The government has been criticised for its heavy handed response, which has left many in the anglophone regions feeling marginalised and open to boycotting the vote.

Biya, who is rarely seen in public, held his first and only campaign rally on Tuesday. Addressing a crowd of supporters at a stadium in the Far North town of Maroua, he promised to step up security in the region, curb youth unemployment, and improve road infrastructure and social amenities if reelected.

“I am well aware of the problems that concern you, I know the unfulfilled expectations that make you doubt the future,” Biya said in his speech. “Based on my own experience, I can assure you that these problems are not insurmountable.”

This year’s election cycle has featured striking appeals for him to step aside. First came the Catholic archbishop Samuel Kleda, who went on French radio last Christmas to say it was “not realistic” for Biya to keep doing the job. Then came the defections of Tchiroma and Maigari, both of whom openly challenged Biya’s fitness to lead.

Finally, the president’s daughter Brenda Biya, 27, said on TikTok last month that her father “has made too many people suffer” and urged Cameroonians not to vote for him. She later recanted, but the post continues to circulate widely among Biya’s detractors.

Theophile, an artist in the economic capital, Douala, called the vote a “scam”. The 24-year-old had hoped to vote for Kamto, who came second to Biya in the 2018 election. “As long as the system remains in place, there is nothing that can be done. There has to be a change,” he said.

Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report

Thousands of protesters against Madagascar’s president were joined on the streets of the capital on Saturday afternoon by soldiers from an elite army unit, who earlier in the day said they would not fire on demonstrators.

Protesters marched alongside soldiers from the Capsat unit, who drove armoured vehicles, some waving Madagascar flags, from their base in Soanierana in the south of Antananarivo.

A Capsat leader, Lylison René de Rolland, then addressed the cheering crowds in front of the city hall in 13 May Square, which protesters had previously been prevented from reaching. Capsat soldiers brought the current president, Andry Rajoelina, to power in a coup in 2009.

The soldiers’ intervention ratcheted up pressure on Rajoelina, who demonstrators have been demanding stand down. The youth-led protests broke out on 25 September, initially over water and electricity cuts. However, they quickly widened into calls for a complete overhaul of the political system, with the gen Z protesters not placated by Rajoelina firing his government last week.

Earlier in the day, police fired stun grenades and teargas to try to disperse the protesters. The recently appointed minister of the armed forces also called on troops to “remain calm”, at a press conference on Saturday.

“We call on our brothers who disagree with us to prioritise dialogue,” minister general Deramasinjaka Manantsoa Rakotoarivelo said. “The Malagasy army remains a mediator and constitutes the nation’s last line of defence.”

However, a Capsat leader accompanied by a large group of soldiers called on other military units to “refuse orders to shoot your friends”, in a video that was posted on social media before they left their barracks.

“Let us join forces, military, gendarmes and police, and refuse to be paid to shoot our friends, our brothers and our sisters,” he said, also calling on soldiers at the airport to “prevent all aircraft from taking off”.

“Close the gates and await our instructions,” he said. “Do not obey orders from your superiors. Point your weapons at those who order you to fire on your comrades-in-arms, because they will not take care of our families if we die.”

Nothing has been posted on the president’s social media accounts since Friday evening, when he was pictured meeting the heads of 10 of the country’s universities to discuss improving students’ lives.

An activist who attended Saturday’s demonstrations said she was concerned about the involvement of Capsat, due to their role in the 2009 coup that brought Rajoelina to power. She also criticised politicians who made brief addresses to the crowds in front of the city hall as “opportunists”.

“That’s why I’m not rejoicing at all, because all of those people gravitating around this ‘event’ are all dangerous,” said the activist, who didn’t want to be named for fear for her safety.

A member of Gen Z Madagascar, a leaderless group of young people that has helped to coordinate the protests, also expressed doubts about what would happen next. “We are very happy, but a lot is happening [and] we don’t want another corrupted person to take the power here, so we will do everything to have the right to choose who to put up there,” he said.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.

A militia drone strike has killed at least 30 people at a displacement shelter in the besieged city of El Fasher in western Sudan, a local activist group said.

The Resistance Committee for El Fasher said the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group hit the Dar al-Arqam displacement centre, which is in the grounds of a university.

Bodies remained trapped in the rubble, the committee said in a statement, describing it as a “massacre” and calling on the international community to intervene.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces in a civil war since April 2023. Its militants have put El Fasher under siege for more than 500 days, and families there are starving.

The UN has described the Sudan war as one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. More than 150,000 people have been killed and more than 14 million displaced.

Countrywide fighting, fuelled by international powers, has raged in the absence of an effective global effort to end the bloodshed.

More details soon …

A militia drone strike has killed at least 30 people at a displacement shelter in the besieged city of El Fasher in western Sudan, a local activist group said.

The Resistance Committee for El Fasher said the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group hit the Dar al-Arqam displacement centre, which is in the grounds of a university.

Bodies remained trapped in the rubble, the committee said in a statement, describing it as a “massacre” and calling on the international community to intervene.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces in a civil war since April 2023. Its militants have put El Fasher under siege for more than 500 days, and families there are starving.

The UN has described the Sudan war as one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. More than 150,000 people have been killed and more than 14 million displaced.

Countrywide fighting, fuelled by international powers, has raged in the absence of an effective global effort to end the bloodshed.

More details soon …

A militia drone strike has killed at least 30 people at a displacement shelter in the besieged city of El Fasher in western Sudan, a local activist group said.

The Resistance Committee for El Fasher said the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group hit the Dar al-Arqam displacement centre, which is in the grounds of a university.

Bodies remained trapped in the rubble, the committee said in a statement, describing it as a “massacre” and calling on the international community to intervene.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces in a civil war since April 2023. Its militants have put El Fasher under siege for more than 500 days, and families there are starving.

The UN has described the Sudan war as one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. More than 150,000 people have been killed and more than 14 million displaced.

Countrywide fighting, fuelled by international powers, has raged in the absence of an effective global effort to end the bloodshed.

More details soon …

The slow-motion pitter-patter of tiny giant tortoise feet has been worryingly rare in recent years, but that looks set to change thanks to the first successful hatching of the species with artificial incubation.

One week after the intervention, the 13 babies are building up their strength on a diet of banana slices and leaves in Seychelles, which is home to one of the last remaining populations of the tortoise.

As new members of one of the biggest and longest-lived reptile species in the world, the Aldabra giant tortoise, they could eventually reach a weight of about 250kg (39.4st) and live more than 100 years.

The hatchlings are the survivors from 18 eggs that were taken from a single nest on Cousin Island by local conservationists after scientists used a groundbreaking microscopic technique to analyse whether the shells contained at-risk embryos.

The researchers said the successful trial could help to stave off an extinction crisis for other threatened species.

“This is a huge leap,” said Alessia Lavigna, a Seychelloise now based at the University of Sheffield, who was the lead author of a recent study related to the project. “It shows what conservation can do.”

The study examined the reproduction rates of five turtle and tortoise species, which revealed that 75% of undeveloped eggs had been fertilised but contained embryos that died at an early stage.

Those findings cast new light on why the Aldabra giant tortoise, which is classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, has extremely low hatching success in wild nests. The failure rate is considered more likely to be due to environmental factors rather than a genetic trait of the tortoises.

Giant tortoises were wiped out from most other Indian Ocean islands in the 19th century as a result of hunting by sailors, but the population on the Aldabra group of islands in the Seychelles was saved thanks to their isolation. Along with 400 other endemic species and the extraordinary colours of the landscape, they were part of the reason why the atoll was listed as a world heritage site by Unesco in 1982.

As a hedge against extinction, some individuals were moved to nearby islands, including Cousin, in the hope that they could establish backup populations in the event of new threats. This has proved prescient because at least one island is being developed as a luxury tourist resort, funded with Qatari money, as the Guardian revealed last year.

According to Lavigna, the reproduction rates of the tortoises on some islands appears to be low because there have been few sightings of juveniles in recent decades. Decadal studies record only the same individuals, prompting concerns that the relative stability of the population has more to do with the longevity of the species rather than their breeding rates.

The incubation of fertilised eggs, which is being trialled in collaboration with the Save Our Seas Foundation, Nature Seychelles and several other local conservation organisations, can help to bolster numbers if there is a crisis. But the priority for research will be how to improve the conditions of wild nests.

“Artificially incubating eggs is not a long-term solution. We can’t have animals that need human intervention to take the eggs, hatch them and put back,” said Nicola Hemmings of the University of Sheffield’s school of biosciences. “We have to identify the variables that are impacting survival, and then see if there are ways to improve the natural nest environment.”

The team say they would like to share their results with scientists in the Galápagos islands, which are home to the only other species of giant tortoises.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has accused the EU of “an obvious double standard” for maintaining a minerals deal with Rwanda to supply Europe’s hi-tech industries when it deployed a far-wider sanctions regime in response to the war in Ukraine.

Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, the DRC foreign minister, urged the EU to levy much stronger sanctions against Rwanda, which has fuelled the conflict in eastern DRC, describing the bloc’s response to violations of DRC territory as “very timid”.

Referencing the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said: “It is an obvious double standard – I want to be constructive here – that makes us curious and inquisitive about understanding why the EU again struggles so much to take action.”

The DRC and Rwanda signed a peace deal in June, brokered by the US and Qatar, aiming to end the decades-old conflict, which escalated early this year when the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group seized swathes of DRC territory, including two key cities. But deadly attacks on civilians have continued and a deadline to reach a peace agreement was missed in August.

Last year a group of UN experts said up to 4,000 Rwandan troops were fighting alongside M23 and that the Rwandan military was in “de facto control of M23 operations”. Rwanda has long denied backing M23 and says its forces act in self-defence.

The DRC president, Félix Tshisekedi, on Thursday appealed to his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, to stop supporting militants in the DRC at a Brussels event attended by both leaders, drawing a rebuke from Kigali that he was “completely mistaken” about the roots of the conflict.

Saying he was stretching out his hand to make peace, Tshisekedi told Kagame: “This requires you to order the M23 troops supported by your country to stop this escalation, which has already caused enough deaths.”

The Rwandan foreign minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, later responded on X, saying Tshisekedi was “completely mistaken” and accusing him of abusing the platform at the Brussels event.

Speaking before the meeting, Wagner drew parallels between Rwanda’s violation of DRC territory and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The EU had adopted a catalogue of sanctions against Russia, but made only “very timid progress” over the conflict in eastern DRC.

The eastern DRC, a region bordering Rwanda with abundant natural resources but plagued by non-state armed groups, has suffered extreme violence for more than three decades.

The EU has placed sanctions on 32 people and two entities – a militant group and a Rwandan gold refiner dealing in illegal supplies of the metal – for their role in fuelling the conflict. Setting out justifications for these sanctions, the EU said the Rwandan Defence Force in eastern DRC had violated the DRC’s territory and “sustains the armed conflict … [and is] also responsible for serious human rights abuses, including collective punishment”.

Despite this finding of human rights abuses by the Rwandan army in the DRC, the European Commission has brushed off calls to suspend a 2024 minerals deal with Kigali, which is intended to boost the supply of raw materials to power Europe’s electric car batteries and microchips.

Wagner said the memorandum of understanding with Rwanda was “void of any credibility in a context where it has been established that Rwanda has been siphoning off Congolese resources” extracted under brutal conditions of forced labour, involving children.

The US and many others have raised concerns about illegal trade in gold and tantalum in eastern Congo, extracted via forced labour, then trafficked to Rwanda for export to benefit armed groups.

Wagner said it was up to the EU whether it chose to suspend or annul the agreement “but silence is probably the least constructive [response] and the most perplexing one”.

The conflict in eastern DRC is one of the seven wars Donald Trump claims to have ended, although between June and the end of September the UN reported 1,087 people had been killed. It remains one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 7.8 million people internally displaced in eastern DRC and 28 million facing food insecurity, including 4 million at emergency levels, according to the UN.

As the DRC’s chief diplomat, Wagner signed the agreement with Rwanda in the White House in June, which also aims to give the US greater access to Congolese natural resources.

She said the US was still engaged in the peace process and she rejected suggestions that Trump’s sole motivation was the DRC’s vast mineral wealth, while adding: “It is just a reality ... that this potential is currently untapped.”

She was in Brussels to take part in a conference on the global gateway, Europe’s lower-budget answer to the Chinese belt and road initiative, which aims to finance infrastructure projects around the world.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, opened the conference on Thursday, saying the EU wanted “partnerships based on common interests and respect for sovereignty”. She highlighted the Lobito corridor – rail, road and water transport links – connecting the mineral heartlands of the DRC and Zambia to Angola’s Atlantic coast.

Wagner said the EU and DRC had a strong foundation in the Lobito project, but “a lot has been overshadowed by the situation in eastern DRC”.

The international criminal court has convicted a leader of the Janjaweed militia of playing a leading role in a campaign of atrocities committed in the Sudanese region of Darfur more than 20 years ago.

It was the first time the court had convicted a suspect of crimes in Darfur. The court ruled that the atrocities, including mass murders and rapes, were part of a government plan to snuff out a rebellion in the western region of Sudan.

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd–al-Rahman, also known by the nom de guerre Ali Kushayb showed no emotion as the presiding judge, Joanna Korner, read out 27 guilty verdicts.

“The chamber is convinced that the accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crimes with which he has been charged,” said Korner. She added that sentencing would take place at a later date.

Korner detailed harrowing accounts of gang rapes, abuse and mass killing. She said that on one occasion, Abd-al-Rahman loaded about 50 civilians on to trucks, beating some with axes, before making them lie on the ground and ordering his troops to shoot them dead.

“The accused was not only giving orders … but was personally involved in the beatings and later was physically present and giving orders for the execution of those detained,” said the ICC judge.

Prosecutors had accused Abd-al-Rahman of being a leading member of Sudan’s infamous Janjaweed militia, which participated “enthusiastically” in war crimes.

But Abd-al-Rahman, who was born around 1949, has denied all the charges, telling the court they had the wrong man.

“I am not Ali Kushayb. I do not know this person … I have nothing to do with the accusations against me,” he told the court at a hearing in December 2024.

But Korner said the court was “satisfied that the accused was the person known … as Ali Kushayb”, dismissing defence witnesses who had denied that.

Abd-al-Rahman fled to Central African Republic in February 2020 when a new Sudanese government announced its intention to cooperate with the ICC investigation.

He said he then handed himself in because he was “desperate” and feared authorities would kill him.

Fighting broke out in the Darfur region when non-Arab tribes, complaining of systematic discrimination, took up arms against Khartoum’s Arab-dominated government.

The then Sudanese government responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, a force drawn from among the region’s nomadic tribes.

The United Nations has said that 300,000 people were killed and that 2.5 million others displaced by the Darfur conflict in the 2000s.

During the trial, the ICC chief prosecutor said Abd-al-Rahman and his forces “rampaged across different parts of Darfur”.

He “inflicted severe pain and suffering on women, children and men in the villages that he left in his wake”, said Karim Khan, who has since stepped down as he faces allegations of sexual misconduct.

Abd-al-Rahman is also thought to be an ally of the deposed Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC on genocide charges.

Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for nearly three decades, was ousted and detained in April 2019 after months of protests in Sudan.

He has not, however, been handed over to the ICC, based in The Hague, where he also faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

ICC prosecutors are hoping to issue fresh arrest warrants related to the current crisis in Sudan.

Since 2023, tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced in a war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which grew out of the Janjaweed militia.

The conflict, marked by claims of atrocities on all sides, has left the north-east African country on the brink of famine, according to aid agencies.

Eswatini will receive 11 people deported by the US later this month, the government has said, the second group of third-country deportees to be sent to the southern African kingdom by the Trump administration in what lawyers and NGOs have described as violations of the migrants’ human rights.

A statement by the Eswatini government posted on social media said: “The individuals will be kept in a secured area separate from the public, while arrangements are made for their return to their countries of origin.”

It added that it would work with the International Organization for Migration on the returns. The statement did not specify where the deportees were originally from, when they would arrive in Eswatini and the reasons given by the US for deporting them. Eswatini’s acting government spokesperson, Thabile Mdluli, said she would respond later to a list of questions.

Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to ramp up deportations from the US. This has included striking deals with third countries including El Salvador, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan to remove dozens of migrants who have no connections to where they are being sent and are not given any opportunity to challenge their removals.

At least eight west African men were deported to their home countries via Ghana in September, despite fearing they would be subject to “torture, persecution or inhumane treatment”.

Five men from Cambodia, Cuba, Jamaica, Vietnam and Yemen were deported in July by the US to Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people landlocked by South Africa and Mozambique, where they were put in a maximum security prison.

Orville Etoria, who served 24 years for murder in the US before being released there in 2021, was returned to Jamaica on 21 September. The US had claimed that the five men were so “uniquely barbaric” that their home countries would not take them back, something that Jamaica’s government denied in the case of Etoria.

Eswatini’s government, which is appointed by Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III, said two of the other five men were expected to be repatriated soon.

A group of Eswatini NGOs has challenged the deportation deal. The case has been delayed twice – once when the attorney general did not come to court and again when the judge failed to turn up. The hearing is due on Tuesday 7 October.

US lawyers for the men have said they have been denied the opportunity to have private calls with their clients. On 3 October, Eswatini’s high court granted a local lawyer access to the men. The judgment was stayed, as the government immediately appealed to the supreme court, arguing that “the respondent failed to establish a legally recognised connection with the foreign nationals”.

“The US government is basically paying ‘third countries’ to be the henchmen in their deliberate cruelty toward immigrants,” Alma David, the US attorney for Roberto Mosquera del Peral from Cuba and Kassim Wasil from Yemen, both of whom are still imprisoned in Eswatini, said in a statement responding to Etoria’s release in September.

Eswatini will receive 11 people deported by the US later this month, the government has said, the second group of third-country deportees to be sent to the southern African kingdom by the Trump administration in what lawyers and NGOs have described as violations of the migrants’ human rights.

A statement by the Eswatini government posted on social media said: “The individuals will be kept in a secured area separate from the public, while arrangements are made for their return to their countries of origin.”

It added that it would work with the International Organization for Migration on the returns. The statement did not specify where the deportees were originally from, when they would arrive in Eswatini and the reasons given by the US for deporting them. Eswatini’s acting government spokesperson, Thabile Mdluli, said she would respond later to a list of questions.

Donald Trump’s administration is attempting to ramp up deportations from the US. This has included striking deals with third countries including El Salvador, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan to remove dozens of migrants who have no connections to where they are being sent and are not given any opportunity to challenge their removals.

At least eight west African men were deported to their home countries via Ghana in September, despite fearing they would be subject to “torture, persecution or inhumane treatment”.

Five men from Cambodia, Cuba, Jamaica, Vietnam and Yemen were deported in July by the US to Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people landlocked by South Africa and Mozambique, where they were put in a maximum security prison.

Orville Etoria, who served 24 years for murder in the US before being released there in 2021, was returned to Jamaica on 21 September. The US had claimed that the five men were so “uniquely barbaric” that their home countries would not take them back, something that Jamaica’s government denied in the case of Etoria.

Eswatini’s government, which is appointed by Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III, said two of the other five men were expected to be repatriated soon.

A group of Eswatini NGOs has challenged the deportation deal. The case has been delayed twice – once when the attorney general did not come to court and again when the judge failed to turn up. The hearing is due on Tuesday 7 October.

US lawyers for the men have said they have been denied the opportunity to have private calls with their clients. On 3 October, Eswatini’s high court granted a local lawyer access to the men. The judgment was stayed, as the government immediately appealed to the supreme court, arguing that “the respondent failed to establish a legally recognised connection with the foreign nationals”.

“The US government is basically paying ‘third countries’ to be the henchmen in their deliberate cruelty toward immigrants,” Alma David, the US attorney for Roberto Mosquera del Peral from Cuba and Kassim Wasil from Yemen, both of whom are still imprisoned in Eswatini, said in a statement responding to Etoria’s release in September.

One night in early July, Maryan Abdikadir Geedi decided it was finally time to abandon her small shop in the town of Moqokori in the Hiiraan region of Somalia.

Though she had heard of the rapid recent gains made by al-Shabaab, the Islamist militant movement, the 46-year-old had hoped to stay. Since getting married in 2013, Geedi had seen control over Moqokori change hands repeatedly.

“Just like how the rain comes and goes, so does control over Moqokori, but this time it was different,” Geedi said.

Since launching their offensive in February, al-Shabaab has swept through a swath of Somalia, taking back all the territory it lost to a coalition of government forces and allied tribal militias backed by US and Turkish air support in 2023, and adding more. In July, the fighting had reached within 40km (25 miles) of Mogadishu, the capital. Some observers predicted the capital might fall.

“The fear was immense. Word started spreading that [al-Shabaab] were advancing. When the fear got too much to bear, I decided to leave,” said Geedi, who headed for the town of Buloburde, 90km away, with her husband and nine children.

In recent weeks, frontlines have stabilised, though government security forces are still on the defensive. There is a construction boom in Mogadishu, and few now believe the capital will be seized by the militants.

Though the US has intensified airstrikes against al-Shabaab and other militant groups in Somalia, Washington has signalled it will not send back the hundreds of special forces withdrawn during Donald Trump’s first term.

Instead, countries such as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uganda have committed troops, training or air support over recent years, while the African Union mission continues to field thousands of soldiers. Egypt is now sending a large contingent too.

Without this support, government forces would collapse, analysts say.

“It’s a strategic stalemate,” said Samira Gaid, regional security analyst with Balqiis, a Mogadishu-based thinktank. “Al-Shabaab are not interested in taking Mogadishu. They have a lot of smaller towns under their control and most of the rural areas. We have been stuck here for a while … and we will be stuck with it for as long as the government has the edge provided by foreign troops.”

The success of the recent al-Shabaab offensive has dealt a significant blow to the morale of fragmented security forces and the government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who pledged “total war” against the militants after taking power in 2022.

“I’ve lost 20 friends [fellow soldiers] and have been wounded twice in battle,” said one 42-year-old Somalia National Army veteran in the city of Beledweyne.

“I’ve fought in Beera Yabaal, Aboorey, Yasooman, Mabaax, Ceel Qooxle, Adan Yabaal, Masjid Cali Gaduud and Daaru Nicma. In the time since, all these areas have been recaptured by al-Shabaab,” he said. “[Al-Shabaab fighters] believe if they die, heaven awaits them, while most soldiers … want to collect their meagre salaries and return to their families.”

The veteran said he was concerned by the rapid gains made by al-Shabaab in recent months but fears worse is to come if nothing is done now to stop the militant advance.

“Now [al-Shabaab] are in a position where they can move fighters and supplies [around the country] as result of capturing strategic towns in Hiiraan. This puts many more areas in south and central Somalia at risk of falling. They are moving fast,” he said.

Observers point to the government’s weakness as the main cause of the militants’ recent success.

“The situation with al-Shabaab on the ground is always determined by the overall political and security environment and that is quite bad at the moment,” said Ahmed Soliman, an expert in east Africa at Chatham House in London.

“There are really big divisions in the country and these make it very difficult for federal government, its forces and international forces to coordinate counter terrorist efforts. Al-Shabaab are taking advantage of a very fragmented political landscape at this time.”

Further funding for the $160m a year African Union force in Somalia is also uncertain, which “has an impact on operations”, Soliman said.

Three weeks after the fall of Moqokori, al-Shabaab seized the strategic town of Maxaas, which sent shock waves across the country.

“With each day that passed more people started leaving. Homes had been abandoned, stores and markets left empty,” said Nimo Abdi Barre, 37.

With her husband and six children, Nimo trekked to the outskirts of town, where they where able to hitchhike on a lorry heading towards the city of Beledweyne – the capital of Hirshabelle province.

“My kids where vomiting and screaming. This was made worse by fears of IEDs and landmines on the road. My faith in God is what got me through,” she said.

Nimo has remained in Beledweyne, which the government has so far successfully defended.

“I’m here with family but at the same time nothing is worse then feeling like a refugee on your own soil,” she said. “I want to return home but only time will tell if I ever get the chance.”

Two people were killed in the southern Moroccan city of Lqliâa on Wednesday night after security forces opened fire at protesters during demonstrations, local authorities said.

Morocco’s state news agency, Map, cited local authorities as saying two people were killed by police who were acting in self-defence while trying to seize police weapons, as anti-government protests that started as a call for social justice reforms took a deadly turn.

Security forces used firearms after tear gas failed to stop the group from storming into the security force’s facility, local authorities said.

Armed with knives, the group set fire to a part of the facility and to a vehicle, local authorities said.

The deaths were the first fatalities as anger mounts across the north African country over government spending.

The recent wave of youth anger was sparked by earlier protests over poor hospital conditions after eight women died in a public hospital in the city of Agadir, and quickly spread to other cities.

The protests started on Saturday with demands for better education and healthcare and have been organised online by a loosely formed, anonymous youth group calling itself GenZ 212, which has been using used platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and the gaming social chat app Discord to mobilise support.

Membership in GenZ 212’s Discord server has surged from about 3,000 last week to more than 130,000 today.

The protests mirror similar youth-led unrest that has swept countries such as Nepal, Madagascar and Kenya.

Authorities initially responded with attempts to quash the rallies, but the demonstrations escalated into widespread unrest on Tuesday night. The interior ministry said 263 members of the security forces and 23 civilians were injured during clashes.

On Wednesday night, violence spread to the city of Salé, where groups of young men in densely populated neighbourhoods hurled stones at police, looted shops, set banks on fire and torched police vehicles, according to witnesses.

The demonstrations have taken the country by surprise and emerged as some of Morocco’s biggest in years. There have been mass arrests in more than a dozen cities, particularly in places where jobs are scarce and social services lacking.

Protesters are decrying what they see as widespread corruption, contrasting the flow of billions in investment toward preparation for the 2030 World Cup the lacking funding for and poor state of schools and hospitals.

Pointing to stadiums under construction or renovation across the country, protesters have chanted: “Stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?” and alleged rampant corruption at everyday people’s expense.

The link has drawn attention to deep disparities endure in Morocco. Despite rapid development according to some metrics, many Moroccans feel disillusioned by its unevenness.

Officials have denied prioritising World Cup spending over public infrastructure, saying problems facing the health sector were inherited from previous governments.

In Morocco’s parliament, the governing majority said it would meet on Thursday to discuss healthcare and hospital reforms as part of a meeting headed by the prime minister, Aziz Akhannouch.

Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham, said the protests had been triggered by economic issues and were happening “in more urbanised areas that are not as deeply authoritarian”.

“In general, it is where extremely young populations interact with urbanisation and economic downturn, under conditions where it is possible to protest,” he said.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Two Kenyan activists have been abducted in Uganda after attending a presidential campaign event for Bobi Wine, a reggae musician turned politician.

Heavily armed security operatives detained Bob Njagi, the chair of Free Kenya, and Nicholas Oyoo, the movement’s secretary general, at a petrol station near Kampala on Wednesday afternoon.

The activists had reportedly travelled from Kenya to Uganda on Monday to support Wine – real name Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu – at his campaign rallies in the eastern region.

In a video of an event on Tuesday, Njagi could be seen on stage beside Wine, who leads Uganda’s National Unity Platform party.

“They attended the first rally in eastern Uganda and left the campaign trail and came to Kampala, where two of them were picked up by security operatives; some in police uniform and others in plain clothes and up to now their whereabouts is not known,” said Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan lawyer, journalist and critic of the government of President Yoweri Museveni.

“This is another incident in what is seen as transborder repression that has become commonplace in east Africa.”

Atuhaire and the Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi were themselves detained in Tanzania during a visit in support of an opposition politician. Both said they were beaten and tortured before being dumped at their countries’ borders.

Kizza Besigye, a prominent Ugandan opposition leader, and his aide Obeid Lutale were detained in Kenya in November. Besigye was later charged with treason at a military court martial in Kampala.

Atuhaire said: “It points to two possible scenarios: that the three authoritarian [leaders] in east Africa are working together to crack down on critics, activists and journalists, or that they are very afraid of a united east Africa and that’s why they use force on east Africans being seen supporting their fellow east Africans who are victims of their repression – or both.”

Njagi was abducted last year by masked men in Nairobi during a wave of abductions believed to have been targeted at critics of the Kenyan government. He was held incommunicado for 32 days for advocating progressive economic reforms and better governance.

Wine, who is challenging Museveni in Uganda’s presidential elections in January, criticised the abductions.

“We condemn the continuing lawlessness by the rogue regime and demand that these brothers are released unconditionally,” the 43-year-old said on X.

“The criminal regime apparently abducted them simply for associating with me and expressing solidarity with our cause.”

Uganda’s police spokesperson, Rusoke Kituuma, did not respond to repeated calls to comment on the matter. The government has made no statement.

Museveni, 81, has held power in Uganda since 1986 and is one of the world’s longest standing national leaders.

Two people were killed in the southern Moroccan city of Lqliâa on Wednesday night after security forces opened fire at protesters during demonstrations, local authorities said.

Morocco’s state news agency, Map, cited local authorities as saying two people were killed by police who were acting in self-defence while trying to seize police weapons, as anti-government protests that started as a call for social justice reforms took a deadly turn.

Security forces used firearms after tear gas failed to stop the group from storming into the security force’s facility, local authorities said.

Armed with knives, the group set fire to a part of the facility and to a vehicle, local authorities said.

The deaths were the first fatalities as anger mounts across the north African country over government spending.

The recent wave of youth anger was sparked by earlier protests over poor hospital conditions after eight women died in a public hospital in the city of Agadir, and quickly spread to other cities.

The protests started on Saturday with demands for better education and healthcare and have been organised online by a loosely formed, anonymous youth group calling itself GenZ 212, which has been using used platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and the gaming social chat app Discord to mobilise support.

Membership in GenZ 212’s Discord server has surged from about 3,000 last week to more than 130,000 today.

The protests mirror similar youth-led unrest that has swept countries such as Nepal, Madagascar and Kenya.

Authorities initially responded with attempts to quash the rallies, but the demonstrations escalated into widespread unrest on Tuesday night. The interior ministry said 263 members of the security forces and 23 civilians were injured during clashes.

On Wednesday night, violence spread to the city of Salé, where groups of young men in densely populated neighbourhoods hurled stones at police, looted shops, set banks on fire and torched police vehicles, according to witnesses.

The demonstrations have taken the country by surprise and emerged as some of Morocco’s biggest in years. There have been mass arrests in more than a dozen cities, particularly in places where jobs are scarce and social services lacking.

Protesters are decrying what they see as widespread corruption, contrasting the flow of billions in investment toward preparation for the 2030 World Cup the lacking funding for and poor state of schools and hospitals.

Pointing to stadiums under construction or renovation across the country, protesters have chanted: “Stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?” and alleged rampant corruption at everyday people’s expense.

The link has drawn attention to deep disparities endure in Morocco. Despite rapid development according to some metrics, many Moroccans feel disillusioned by its unevenness.

Officials have denied prioritising World Cup spending over public infrastructure, saying problems facing the health sector were inherited from previous governments.

In Morocco’s parliament, the governing majority said it would meet on Thursday to discuss healthcare and hospital reforms as part of a meeting headed by the prime minister, Aziz Akhannouch.

Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham, said the protests had been triggered by economic issues and were happening “in more urbanised areas that are not as deeply authoritarian”.

“In general, it is where extremely young populations interact with urbanisation and economic downturn, under conditions where it is possible to protest,” he said.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Young protesters in Madagascar have said they will continue their fight until the president, Andry Rajoelina, resigns and rejected his dissolution of the government on Monday as insufficient.

Twenty-two people were killed and 100 injured at the demonstrations, according to the UN. The unrest broke out on 25 September when local councillors were arrested for protesting against water and electricity outages in the capital, Antananarivo. The youth-led protests quickly spread to other towns and cities, fuelled by social media and other “Gen Z protests in Indonesia and Nepal, where the government was toppled.

Madagascar is one of the world’s poorest countries, with an average annual income of just $545 last year, according to the World Bank. The Indian Ocean island, which has a population of 32 million, was ranked 140 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Activists, who are part of Gen Z Madagascar, a leaderless group of young people, are demanding the resignation of the president; the dissolution of parliament; the replacement of constitutional court judges and electoral commission members and the rooting out of corruption that they say stems from the president and businessmen close to him.

“When he decided to dissolve the government, we felt like it was a small victory, but we will not stop there … We really want a radical change of the system because it’s the system that maintains the corruption and also maintains the oppression of the poorest people in the country,” said a 26-year-old activist who, like her fellow protesters, asked to remain anonymous for fear of arrest.

She added: “After what happened in Nepal, youth really believe that their voices can be really powerful … and that we can actually change things. We don’t have to accept the status quo and we can define our future. We do not have to be sacrificed by this mediocre government.”

In a speech announcing the dissolution of the government on Monday, Rajoelina, who came to power in a coup in 2009 after street protests against his predecessor, Marc Ravalomanana, said: “We acknowledge and apologise if members of the government have not carried out the tasks assigned to them.

“I understand the anger, the sadness, and the difficulties caused by power cuts and water supply problems. I heard the call, I felt the suffering, I understood the impact on daily life.” He added that that he wanted to create space for dialogue with young people.

The 26-year-old activist said the group would engage in talks only if they were public and fully transparent. Some of her fellow protesters rejected talks entirely, saying the president was insincere and trying to create division in their movement.

“It’s literally a mafia,” said an 18-year-old protester, who finished secondary school this year and helps to run Gen Z Madagascar’s social media accounts. “They are going to try to speak to us, obviously, but it’s never going to be in our interest.”

Gen Z Madagascar members had been learning from fellow young protesters in Asia, he said. They have joined the Nepali movement Discord’s servers and have adapted a flag with the cartoon skull and crossbones from the Japanese anime series One Piece, which has been flown in Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines. In place of the original straw hat, the skull wears a satroka bucket hat from Madagascar’s Betsileo ethnic group.

Similar Gen Z protests have been raging in Morocco since the weekend, with two people killed by security forces near Agadir on Wednesday.

Malagasy officials have accused the protesters of looting. The president’s spokesperson, Lova Hasinirina Ranoromaro, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday: “We lost our jobs. Our property was destroyed. Our houses were raided … We don’t want a coup d’état.” Ranoromaro did not respond to requests for comment.

The Malagasay activists denied young people were responsible for the looting and said they had arranged a cleanup day on 26 September. They added they were determined to remain “constitutional” and avoid a repeat of the 2009 coup.

The young people said they were aware and often afraid of the risks they were taking and some of their compatriots had gone into hiding. But they they were determined to continue until their demands for complete reform of Madagascar’s politics were met, they said.

“I realised if I stop now, who’s gonna stand up again? If I don’t do it, who’s going to do it? If it’s not now, then when?” said a 25-year-old who helps to run Gen Z Madagascar’s social media. “Because it’s been 15 years that this regime has brought people to its knees and right now we’re standing up. So we are the last hope of this generation.”

Anti-government demonstrations gripped Morocco for the fourth night in a row as young people filled the streets of cities and destruction and violence broke out in several places.

With billions in investment flowing toward preparations for the 2030 World Cup, promises to fix Morocco’s strained social services have not quelled anger from internet-savvy youth, who launched some of the country’s biggest street protests in years.

The “Gen Z” demonstrations mirror similar unrest sweeping countries such as Nepal and Madagascar.

Young Moroccans clashed with security forces on Tuesday as they decried the dire state of many schools and hospitals. After dozens of peaceful protesters were arrested over the weekend, violence broke out in several cities, especially in areas where jobs are scarce and social services lacking.

“The right to health, education and a dignified life is not an empty slogan but a serious demand,” the organisers of the Gen Z212 protest movement wrote in a statement published on Discord. They cited King Mohammed VI, implored protesters to remain peaceful and criticised “repressive security approaches”.

Still, the protests have escalated and become more destructive, particularly in cities far from where development efforts have been concentrated in Morocco. Local outlets and footage filmed by witnesses showed protesters hurling rocks and setting vehicles ablaze in cities and towns in the country’s east and south, including in Inzegane and Ait Amira.

In Oujda, eastern Morocco’s largest city, one person was injured when a police vehicle rammed into demonstrators, local human rights groups and the state news agency MAP said.

Morocco’s interior ministry said the anonymously organised protests lacked authorisation and were dealt with according to the law, noting that those found to be breaking the law would be treated “rigorously and firmly”. It said 409 people were taken into police custody.

It said 263 members of law enforcement were injured during the nationwide protests that also damaged 142 of their vehicles. Twenty private cars were also damaged and 23 civilians were injured, the ministry said.

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) said 37 protesters had been arrested in Oujda on Monday, among them six minors, and would appear in court on Wednesday.

They are among the hundreds that AMDH said had been apprehended, including many whose arrests were captured on video by local media and some who were detained by plainclothes officers during interviews.

“With protests scheduled to continue, we urge authorities to engage with the legitimate demands of the youth for their social, economic, and cultural rights and to address their concerns about corruption,” Amnesty International’s regional office said on Tuesday.

In some of Morocco’s largest anti-government protests in years, the leaderless movement has harnessed anger about conditions in hospitals and schools to express outrage over the government’s spending priorities.

Pointing to new stadiums under construction or renovation across the country, protesters have chanted: “Stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?” The recent deaths of eight women at a public hospital in Agadir have also become a rallying cry against the decline of Morocco’s health system.

The movement, which originated on platforms such as TikTok and Discord, which are popular among young people, has won additional backing since authorities began arresting people over the weekend, including from Morocco’s star goalkeeper Yassine Bounou and its most famous rapper ElGrandeToto.

Officials have denied prioritising World Cup spending over public infrastructure, saying problems facing the health sector were inherited from previous governments. In Morocco’s parliament, the governing majority said it would meet on Thursday to discuss healthcare and hospital reform as part of a meeting led by the prime minister, Aziz Akhannouch.

A military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sentenced the country’s former president Joseph Kabila to death in absentia after convicting him of war crimes, treason and crimes against humanity.

The case stems from his alleged role in backing the advance of M23 rebels supported by Rwanda in DRC’s volatile eastern provinces. Kabila, who led the country from 2001 to 2019, has denied wrongdoing and said the judiciary had been politicised.

Lt Gen Joseph Mutombo Katalayi, presiding over the tribunal in Kinshasa, said Kabila had been found guilty of charges that included murder, sexual assault, torture and insurrection.

Kabila did not attend the trial and was not represented by legal counsel. Neither he nor his representatives were immediately available for comment. His whereabouts were not immediately known.

“In applying article 7 of the military penal code,[the court] imposes a single sentence, namely the most severe one, which is the death penalty,” Katalayi said while delivering the verdict.

Kabila was also ordered to pay about $50bn (£36bn) in damages to the state and victims.

The verdict could fuel further divisions in the vast mineral-rich central African country, which has endured decades of conflict.

Kabila spent almost 20 years in power and stepped down only after deadly protests against him. He has been living mostly in South Africa since 2023, but appeared in the rebel-held city of Goma in eastern DRC in May.

He entered in to an awkward power-sharing deal with his successor, Felix Tshisekedi, but their relationship soon soured.

As M23 rebels marched on eastern DRC’s second-largest city of Bukavu in February, Tshisekedi told the Munich security conference that Kabila had sponsored the insurgency.

M23 now controls much of North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. The fighting has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more this year. The two sides signed a US-brokered peace agreement in June, but they are both reinforcing their positions and blaming one another for flouting the accord, sources have said.

Rwanda, which has long denied helping M23, says its forces act in self-defence against DRC’s army and ethnic Hutu militia members linked to the 1994 genocide.

Tshisekedi’s government has moved to suspend Kabila’s political party and seize its leaders’ assets.

Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina, has dissolved the government after youth-led protests over water and power cuts in which the UN says at least 22 people have been killed and more than 100 injured.

Inspired by the “gen Z” protests in Kenya and Nepal, the three days of demonstrations are the largest the Indian Ocean island has seen in years, and the most serious challenge Rajoelina has faced since his re-election in 2023.

“We acknowledge and apologise if members of the government have not carried out the tasks assigned to them,” Rajoelina said in speech on state broadcaster Televiziona Malagasy.

“I understand the anger, the sadness, and the difficulties caused by power cuts and water supply problems. I heard the call, I felt the suffering, I understood the impact on daily life,” he said.

Applications for a new premier will be received over the next three days before a new government is formed, he said.

The president said he wanted to create space for dialogue with young people, and promised measures to support businesses affected by looting.

Thousands of people, many dressed in black and chanting for Rajoelina to resign, have marched in the capital Antananarivo since the demonstrations began last week.

Police have responded with a heavy hand, firing teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. More than 100 people have been injured.

The UN’s human rights office blamed a “violent response” by security forces for some of the deaths, with other fatalities caused by violence and looting by gangs not associated with the protesters.

Madagascar’s ministry of foreign affairs rejected the casualty figures reported by the UN, saying the data did not come from competent national authorities, saying they were “based on rumours or misinformation”.

On Monday, protesters gathered at a university where they waved placards and sang the national anthem before attempting to march towards the city centre, footage from 2424.MG news channel showed.

Police fired teargas to disperse the crowd after authorities declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew last week.

The protesters have adapted a flag used in Nepal where protesters forced the prime minister to resign earlier this month, and they have also used similar online organisation tactics as protests in Kenya last year that culminated in the government scrapping proposed tax legislation.

Rajoelina first came to power in a 2009 coup. He stepped down in 2014 but became president again after winning the 2018 election, and secured a third term in a December 2023 poll that his challengers said was marred by irregularities.

Madagascar is among the world’s poorest nations and has experienced frequent popular uprisings since gaining independence in 1960, including mass protests in 2009 that forced former president Marc Ravalomanana from power.

Wildfires that have raged through one of Africa’s largest national parks were under control, Namibia’s government has said, amid criticisms from citizen firefighters over the lack of a national disaster response mechanism and limited resources.

Fire broke out in Etosha national park, in the arid desert nation’s north, on 22 September. The government said it suspected charcoal production next to the park, which is home to 114 mammal species including the critically endangered black rhino, was to blame.

On Saturday, the government said 49 soldiers were being deployed to fight the fires and a further 500 on Sunday. It said more than 775,000 hectares inside the park, about a third of its area, had been burned and another 171,000 outside it.

“All fires contained / mop-up and monitoring continues,” the prime minister, Tjitunga Elijah Ngurare, posted on his Facebook page on Monday morning, listing 10 separate blazes in the region.

However, Sean Naude, a businessman who leads Namibian Marshall Rangers, a group of rescue service volunteers, said there were at least four “active fires”. He said: “Fires in the park are pretty much contained, but not extinguished and the others running from the park are still out of control. However there is not much in the park left to burn.”

He criticised the government for not coordinating with citizens and private organisations sooner. “Why did they take so long to accept our help? [It took them ] five days… [and] only on the fourth day was the army deployed.”

Frank Stein, who runs Bay Air Aviation, a medical air ambulance company, flew reconnaissance flights in a Cessna airplane and a helicopter on Saturday and Sunday to help farmers battling to stop the fires spreading further south of the national park on to their land.

He said: “I read in the news that the Namibian Defence Force is fighting the fires and this might very well be, but I didn’t see them on the ground. All I saw was a handful of farmers, maybe 50 people in total, different groups, trying to fight the fires with, I wouldn’t even call it limited resources.”

Stein said the government was now asking his company and others to submit proposals to help them fight the fires, adding: “All of a sudden there’s an emergency and … then everybody’s happy to pay, but by that time it’s too late. The economy of scale option has passed you.”

Earlier on Monday, Namibia’s prime minister posted on Facebook: “We appreciate those in the private sector that are assisting in curtailing the fire… Let’s work together: government and private sector. Let’s discourage those engaging in helpless blame game [sic]. Government has deployed resources to ensure the fire is contained.”

The government said that an elephant death had been reported but not confirmed, nine antelopes had been killed by the fire and one pangolin rescued.

The park’s main attraction for tourists is the ancient Etosha salt pan. It is 80 miles long and 30 wide and draws huge flocks of flamingoes during the rainy season, which usually starts in October or November.

West Africans deported by the US to Ghana are now fending for themselves in Togo after being dumped in the country without documents, according to lawyers and deportees.

The latest chapter in Donald Trump’s deportation programme, their saga became public earlier this month when the Ghanaian president, John Mahama, disclosed that his country had struck a deal to accept deportees from the region.

Eight to 10 west African nationals have since been forcibly sent by Ghana to Togo, bypassing a formal border crossing, and then left on the street without passports.

“The situation is terrible,” said Benjamin, a Nigerian national, who said over the weekend he was staying in a hotel room with three other deportees and only one bed, living on money sent from their families in the US.

Benjamin – who is using a pseudonym to protect his identity, as he fears persecution from the Nigerian government – said an immigration judge had ruled in June that he couldn’t be deported to Nigeria, citing risks to his life because of his past involvement in politics. He had expected to be released to his wife and children, who are US citizens.

He said he was beaten by immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) agents when he refused to board a US military plane headed to an unspecified location, which turned out to be Ghana.

Ice did not respond to a request for comment.

Up to 28 people have arrived in the west African nation from the US so far in the deportation programme.

Accra disclosed an initial batch of 14, and Meredyth Yoon, a US-based lawyer, said a second plane that could carry the same amount had since landed, though it was unclear how many people were on it.

The initial 14 deportees had won protections in US immigration courts preventing their removal to their home countries for fear of persecution, their lawyers said.

But Washington was sending them to Ghana as a loophole, Yoon said – with Accra making it clear people would be forwarded on to their home countries.

One deportee, a bisexual man from the Gambia, was immediately sent home by Ghanaian authorities and is living in hiding because same-sex relations are criminalised in the socially conservative country, according to court filings.

Two Togolese nationals were deported to the Togo border with Benjamin. They were crying and repeating “It’s over, it’s over”, he said, adding that they had since gone into hiding.

Benjamin and another deportee, Emmanuel – also a pseudonym – said they had spent more than two weeks under military guard in Ghana’s Dema camp, a detention facility in Bundase, 70km (43 miles) outside Accra, with nine other deportees who suffered from exposure to heat, mosquitoes and unsanitary water.

The Ghanaian military eventually told them they were taking them to a hotel. Instead, they were driven to the Aflao border crossing on the outskirts of the Togolese capital, Lomé. With the cooperation of Togolese border officials, they were taken “through the back door” of the facility and left on the other side.

“We are in hiding right now because we have no type of documents, ID, whatsoever,” said Emmanuel, a Liberian national who arrived in the US in the 1990s during the first Liberian civil war and was granted asylum.

Emmanuel and Benjamin had been green card holders, and are married to US citizens. Both were sent to Ice detention after serving prison sentences for separate fraud charges.

Emmanuel was fighting his removal in court when he was deported, Yoon said.

The UN human rights office has called on Ghana to stop deporting those sent by the US “to Nigeria, the Gambia, Togo, Mali, Liberia or any other third country where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of being subjected to torture”.

The US state department said: “We will pursue all appropriate options to remove aliens who should not be in the United States.”

Namibia has begun deploying hundreds of soldiers to fight a fire that has burned through a third of the vast Etosha national park, one of Africa’s largest game reserves, officials said.

The park in the north of the largely desert country is home to 114 species of mammals, notably the critically endangered black rhinoceros, and is a major tourist attraction.

The fire had been burning since 22 September and has caused extensive ecological damage, already burning through about 34% of the park, the environment ministry said.

After an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday, the government said 500 extra soldiers would be deployed from Sunday to assist troops, police, locals and other firefighters at the scene, the office of the prime minister, Elijah Ngurare, said in a post on Facebook.

“The order was given that the troops must be deployed, and if all are not on the ground yet, they will be there soon,” the defence minister, Frans Kapofi, said on Sunday.

“They are deployed from various regions and will be deployed to all affected areas,” he said.

At least nine antelope have been killed in the blaze, which is believed to have started from charcoal production activities on bordering commercial farms, the ministry said.

The main feature of the 8,600 sq mile (22,270 sq kilometre) park is the ancient Etosha salt pan, which is 80 miles long and 30 wide and draws huge flocks of flamingoes during the rainy season.