About 200,000 people have fled their homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as Rwanda-backed rebels march on a strategic eastern town just days after Donald Trump hosted the Rwandan and Congolese leaders to proclaim peace.

The UN said at least 74 people had been killed, mostly civilians, and 83 admitted to hospital with wounds from escalating clashes in the area in recent days.

Local officials and residents said M23 rebels had been advancing towards the lakeside town of Uvira on the border with Burundi and fighting Congolese troops and local groups known as Wazalendo in villages to the north.

Trump hosted the presidents of Rwanda and DRC in Washington on 4 December for a ceremony to sign a pact affirming US and Qatari-brokered commitments to end the war.

“Today we’re succeeding where so many others have failed,” he said, claiming his administration had ended a 30-year conflict that had led to the deaths of millions.

M23 fighters pushed towards Uvira on Tuesday after coming under attack by government forces, said Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Alliance Fleuve Congo rebel coalition, urging fleeing soldiers not to abandon the town.

The South Kivu provincial government spokesperson Didier Kabi said in a video message earlier on Tuesday that there had been chaos in Uvira after rumours spread that M23 rebels were near, but that calm was later restored.

Despite the group’s intention to advance on Uvira, its leader, Bertrand Bisimwa, reiterated the group’s support for Qatari-led peace talks in Doha, where representatives from the two sides signed a framework agreement last month for a peace deal intended to halt the fighting in eastern DRC.

“Even if we counterattack, we said that there are no other solutions in the current crisis than the negotiating table, and we want to bring Kinshasa to the negotiating table,” he said.

On Monday the rebels captured Luvungi, a town that had stood as the frontline since February, and fierce fighting was under way near Sange and Kiliba, villages further along the road towards Uvira from the north.

Rwanda denies supporting the rebels in DRC, although Washington and the UN say there is clear evidence to the contrary. The conflict had already displaced at least 1.2 million people before the latest upsurge in fighting.

The state department said late on Monday that the US was deeply concerned by the violence. “Rwanda, which continues to provide support to M23, must prevent further escalation,” a spokesperson said.

The United States has sanctioned four people and four companies accused of enlisting Colombian mercenaries to fight for and train a Sudanese paramilitary group accused by Washington of committing genocide.

Announcing the sanctions on Tuesday, the US treasury said the network was largely comprised of Colombian nationals and companies.

Hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have travelled to Sudan to fight alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has committed horrific war crimes including ethnically targeted slaughter and large-scale abductions.

The Colombians’ involvement first emerged last year, when an investigation by the Bogotá-based outlet La Silla Vacía found that more than 300 former soldiers had been contracted to fight – prompting an unprecedented apology by Colombia’s foreign ministry.

Colombian ex-soldiers have long been considered among the world’s most sought-after mercenaries due to their extensive battlefield experience gleaned from the country’s decades of civil war, knowledge of Nato equipment, and high-level combat training.

In Sudan, the Colombians have reportedly trained child soldiers, taught fighters to pilot drones, and fought directly on the frontlines. One of the mercenaries told the Guardian and La Silla Vacía in October that he had trained children in Sudan and fought in the siege of the city of El Fasher. He said training the children was “awful and crazy” but added that “unfortunately that’s how war is”.

Among those targeted was Álvaro Andrés Quijano Becerra, a dual Colombian-Italian national and retired Colombian military officer based in the United Arab Emirates. The treasury accused him of playing a central role in recruiting and deploying former Colombian soldiers to Sudan. His wife, Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, was also sanctioned.

Also on the sanctions list was Mateo Andres Duque Botero, a dual Colombian-Spanish who the treasury said managed a business accused of handling funds and payroll for the network that hired the Colombian fighters. “In 2024 and 2025, US-based firms associated with Duque engaged in numerous wire transfers, totalling millions of US dollars,” the treasury statement said.

Colombian national Monica Muñoz Ucros was the fourth individual to be sanctioned, with the company she managed accused of carrying out wire transfers linked to Duque and his businesses.

“The United States again calls on external actors to cease providing financial and military support to the belligerents,” the treasury said in a statement.

Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, described the sanctions as a “very significant” milestone, saying that “calling out those who are doing the contracting is the right way to go”.

She added that Colombia also recently passed a law ratifying the International Convention Against the Recruitment and Use of Mercenaries, aiming to curb decades of Colombian involvement in foreign conflicts and transform national security policy.

Sean McFate, an expert on mercenaries, urged more caution, saying that “sanctions are necessary but insufficient for dealing with rampant mercenarism”.

“It’s an illicit economy and based out of Dubai, which is relatively sanction-proof,” he said. The UAE has been widely accused of arming the RSF, an accusation it has denied. “Expect more Colombian mercenaries,” McFate warned.

The United States has sanctioned four people and four companies accused of enlisting Colombian mercenaries to fight for and train a Sudanese paramilitary group accused by Washington of committing genocide.

Announcing the sanctions on Tuesday, the US treasury said the network was largely comprised of Colombian nationals and companies.

Hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have travelled to Sudan to fight alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has committed horrific war crimes including ethnically targeted slaughter and large-scale abductions.

The Colombians’ involvement first emerged last year, when an investigation by the Bogotá-based outlet La Silla Vacía found that more than 300 former soldiers had been contracted to fight – prompting an unprecedented apology by Colombia’s foreign ministry.

Colombian ex-soldiers have long been considered among the world’s most sought-after mercenaries due to their extensive battlefield experience gleaned from the country’s decades of civil war, knowledge of Nato equipment, and high-level combat training.

In Sudan, the Colombians have reportedly trained child soldiers, taught fighters to pilot drones, and fought directly on the frontlines. One of the mercenaries told the Guardian and La Silla Vacía in October that he had trained children in Sudan and fought in the siege of the city of El Fasher. He said training the children was “awful and crazy” but added that “unfortunately that’s how war is”.

Among those targeted was Álvaro Andrés Quijano Becerra, a dual Colombian-Italian national and retired Colombian military officer based in the United Arab Emirates. The treasury accused him of playing a central role in recruiting and deploying former Colombian soldiers to Sudan. His wife, Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, was also sanctioned.

Also on the sanctions list was Mateo Andres Duque Botero, a dual Colombian-Spanish who the treasury said managed a business accused of handling funds and payroll for the network that hired the Colombian fighters. “In 2024 and 2025, US-based firms associated with Duque engaged in numerous wire transfers, totalling millions of US dollars,” the treasury statement said.

Colombian national Monica Muñoz Ucros was the fourth individual to be sanctioned, with the company she managed accused of carrying out wire transfers linked to Duque and his businesses.

“The United States again calls on external actors to cease providing financial and military support to the belligerents,” the treasury said in a statement.

Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, described the sanctions as a “very significant” milestone, saying that “calling out those who are doing the contracting is the right way to go”.

She added that Colombia also recently passed a law ratifying the International Convention Against the Recruitment and Use of Mercenaries, aiming to curb decades of Colombian involvement in foreign conflicts and transform national security policy.

Sean McFate, an expert on mercenaries, urged more caution, saying that “sanctions are necessary but insufficient for dealing with rampant mercenarism”.

“It’s an illicit economy and based out of Dubai, which is relatively sanction-proof,” he said. The UAE has been widely accused of arming the RSF, an accusation it has denied. “Expect more Colombian mercenaries,” McFate warned.

Eleven Nigerian military personnel are being held in Burkina Faso after a Nigerian plane reportedly entered Burkinabé airspace without authorisation on Monday, the latest twist in a region enmeshed in multiple political and security crises.

In a statement on Monday evening, the breakaway Alliance of Sahel States (AES), of which Burkina Faso is a member alongside Mali and Niger, said the C-130 transport aircraft had made an emergency landing in Bobo Dioulasso.

In the statement, Assimi Goita, the Malian junta president and leader of the AES, called the landing an “unfriendly act carried out in defiance of international law”. He directed the authorities in the member countries to act “to neutralise any aircraft that would violate the confederal space” in future.

On Monday, Nigerian authorities said the aircraft had been en route to Portugal for a ferry mission before “a technical concern which necessitated a precautionary landing”.

“[The] crew is safe and have received cordial treatment from the host authorities,” said Ehimen Ejodame, the Nigerian air force spokesperson who signed the statement. “Plans are ongoing to resume the mission as scheduled.”

The incident unfolded less than 24 hours after Nigeria took part in an intervention in Benin, Burkina Faso’s south-eastern neighbour, after a group of soldiers seized control of the national television station in Cotonou and announced the ousting of the president, Patrice Talon.

Authorities in Benin later said they had foiled the coup attempt and restored order, preventing what would have been the eighth successful coup in west Africa in five years.

A statement from the Nigerian government said its airstrikes –targeting a military base in Cotonou where some of the coup planners were reportedly holed up – happened at the behest of Talon and were in compliance with the protocols of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). Ivorian aircraft were also seen hovering over Beninese airspace during the crisis, pointing to a coordinated response by countries aligned with the regional bloc.

The states that make up the AES broke away from Ecowas, headquartered in Nigeria, after Ecowas threatened military intervention in Niger in 2023 to reinstate the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, after he was ousted in a coup. The AES states accuse Ecowas of breaching territorial integrity and being a puppet of the west and have also drawn closer to Russia.

White supremacist ideology and false claims that South Africa’s Afrikaner minority is being racially persecuted pose a threat to South Africa’s sovereignty and national security, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has warned.

Since taking office for his second US presidential term in January, Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that South Africa’s government is seizing land and encouraging violence against white farmers.

“Some in our society still adhere to notions of racial superiority and seek to maintain racial privilege,” Ramaphosa said on Monday at a conference of his African National Congress (ANC) party, which is the largest in South Africa’s governing coalition and has led every national government since the first post-apartheid democratic elections in 1994.

He continued: “The vehement opposition by some groups to our policies of transformation and redress conveniently align with wider notions of white supremacy and white victimhood, fed by false claims of the persecution of white Afrikaners in our country. The propaganda of these false claims has real implications for our sovereignty, international relations and national security.”

Both Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have promoted the false claim that there is a “white genocide” in South Africa, bringing what was previously a niche, far-right conspiracy theory to a far wider audience.

Without naming either man, Ramaphosa said in his speech: “It is essential that we counter this narrative and defeat this agenda … This is a campaign that needs to be launched not only in our country, but globally as well, particularly to address the notions that some globally are perpetrating about what is happening in South Africa.”

The US boycotted last month’s G20 leaders summit in Johannesburg and argued that a consensus could not be reached in its absence. The meeting, led by South Africa, produced a final communique that cited the importance of tackling issues such as gender inequality and climate change, positions that have become anathema to Trump’s “anti-woke” agenda.

The 2026 summit will take place at the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort in Florida, which is owned by the Trump Organization.

The US has invited Poland instead of South Africa to the first meetings of its G20 presidency later this month. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, justified the decision, claiming: “The South African government’s appetite for racism and tolerance for violence against its Afrikaner citizens have become embedded as core domestic policies.”

The US has said it will take just 7,500 people as refugees this year, most of them white South Africans, while closing its refugee programme to people fleeing war and persecution.

Afrikaners, who make up about 4% of South Africa’s population, or about 2.5 million people, are descendants of Dutch colonisers and French Huguenot refugees who came to South Africa in the late 17th century. They led the apartheid regime from 1948, which violently repressed the black majority, while keeping white people safe and wealthy.

White people remain many times wealthier than black South Africans and in 2017 owned 72% of private agricultural land, according to a government land audit. While there have been horrific, high profile murders of white farmers and their families in recent decades, there is no evidence that they are systematically targeted because of their race or that they suffer disproportionately from South Africa’s high violent crime rate.

An ancient Egyptian pleasure boat that matches a description by the first-century Greek historian Strabo has been discovered off the coast of Alexandria, to the excitement of archaeologists.

With its palaces, temples and the 130 metre-high Pharos lighthouse – one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – Alexandria had been one of the most magnificent cities in antiquity. The pleasure boat, which dates from the first half of the first century, was 35 metres long and constructed to hold a central pavilion with a luxuriously decorated cabin.

It was discovered off the submerged island of Antirhodos, which was part of ancient Alexandria’s Portus Magnus (great port).

Strabo had visited the Egyptian city around 29-25BC and wrote of such boats: “These vessels are luxuriously fitted out and used by the royal court for excursions; and the crowd of revellers who go down from Alexandria by the canal to the public festivals; for every day and every night is crowded with people on the boats who play the flute and dance without restraint and with extreme licentiousness.”

The excavations were conducted by the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) under the direction of Franck Goddio, a visiting professor in maritime archaeology at the University of Oxford.

He told the Guardian: “It’s extremely exciting because it’s the first time ever that such a boat has been discovered in Egypt … Those boats were mentioned by different ancient authors, like Strabo, and they were also represented in some iconography – for example in the Palestrina mosaic, where you see such a boat of a much smaller size with noblemen hunting hippopotamuses. But [an actual boat] has never been discovered before.”

While that mosaic depicts perhaps a 15-metre boat, this one is far larger, judging by its well-preserved timbers, which also span a breadth of about 7 metres. It may have required more than 20 rowers.

It had been lying only 7 metres under the water and 1.5 metres under the sediment. Goddio’s initial assumption was that there were two ships on top of one another “because the construction type was so strange”. He added: “The bow is flat … and the stern is round … to be able to navigate in very shallow water.”

Goddio’s most ambitious projects have been conducted off the coast of Egypt, in Alexandria’s eastern harbour and in the Bay of Abu Qir. In partnership with Egypt’s Ministry for Antiquities, he has explored a vast area since 1992.

In 2000, the ancient city of Thonis-Heracleion and parts of the city of Canopus were discovered in the Bay of Abu Qir – one of the greatest archaeological finds of recent times. Two colossal statues of a Ptolemaic queen and king are among spectacular treasures that have been retrieved so far.

In 2019, Goddio and his team found a wreck in the waters around Thonis-Heracleion, whose unusual details matched the description of another ancient Greek historian, Herodotus.

The latest discovery lies less than 50 metres from the site of the Temple of Isis, which Goddio has been excavating. He believes the boat could have sunk during the catastrophic destruction of this temple around AD50.

After a series of earthquakes and tidal waves, the Portus Magnus and parts of the ancient coastline sank beneath the sea, engulfing palaces and other buildings.

Another theory is that the boat could have been a sacred barge attached to the temple. Goddio said: “It could have … [been] part of the naval ceremony of the navigatio iside, when a procession celebrating [the goddess] Isis encountered a richly decorated vessel – the Navigium – which embodied the solar barque of Isis, mistress of the sea.”

Graffiti in Greek was found on the central carling and is yet to be deciphered.

Although research into the wreck is still at an early stage, it promises to reveal new insights into “life, religion, luxury and pleasure on the waterways of early Roman Egypt”, Goddio said.

The latest scientific results of excavations on the temple of Isis have recently been published by the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology.

Prof Damian Robinson, the centre’s director, said of the new discovery: “It’s a type of ship that’s never been found before. While we can read about cabin-boats in ancient texts and see them in the artistic record, it’s phenomenal to have the archaeological correlate.”

The wreck will remain on the seabed. Goddio said: “We are following the regulation of Unesco, which considers that it is better to [leave] the remains underwater.”

Only a tiny percentage of the area has been explored. Excavations are due to resume.

Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 100 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school last month, a UN source and local media said on Sunday, though the fate of another 165 students and staff thought to remain in captivity remained unclear.

In November 315 students and staff were kidnapped from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state, as the country buckled under a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the infamous 2014 Boko Haram abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok.

About 50 of the abductees escaped shortly afterward, leaving 265 thought to be in captivity.

The 100 children are set to be handed over to local government officials in Niger state on Monday, according to the United Nations source.

“They are going to be handed over to Niger state government tomorrow,” the source told AFP on Sunday.

Local media also reported that the release of 100 children had been secured, without offering details on whether it was done through negotiation or military force, nor on the fate on the remaining students and staff thought to still be in the kidnappers’ hands.

The freeing of the 100 children was confirmed to AFP by presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare.

“We have been praying and waiting for their return, if it is true then it is a cheering news,” said Daniel Atori, spokesperson for Bishop Bulus Yohanna of the Kontagora diocese which runs the school.

“However, we are not officially aware and have not been duly notified by the federal government.”

Though kidnappings for ransom are common in the country as a way for criminals and armed groups to make quick cash, in a spate of mass abductions in November hundreds were taken, putting an uncomfortable spotlight on Nigeria’s already grim security situation.

The country faces a long-running jihadist insurgency in the north-east, while armed bandit gangs conduct kidnappings and loot villages in the north-west, and farmers and herders clash in the country’s centre over dwindling land and resources.

On a smaller scale, armed groups linked to separatist movements also haunt the country’s restive south-east.

One of the first mass kidnappings that drew international attention was in 2014, when nearly 300 girls were snatched from their boarding school in the north-eastern town of Chibok by Boko Haram jihadists.

A decade later, Nigeria’s kidnap-for-ransom crisis has “consolidated into a structured, profit-seeking industry” that raised about $1.66m (£1.24m) between July 2024 and June 2025, according to a recent report by SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based consultancy.

West African troops were deployed to Benin on Sunday after what the country’s president described as an unsuccessful coup attempt.

Benin’s president, Patrice Talon, said on Sunday that the situation was “totally under control” after security forces acted to end a coup attempt by a group of soldiers who attacked state institutions.

But Ecowas – West Africa’s regional bloc – said it had ordered the immediate deployment of elements of its standby force to the country, which has a population of about 14.5 million.

Soldiers from Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone were being sent to “support the government and the Republican Army of Benin to preserve constitutional order and the territorial integrity of the Republic of Benin”, the bloc said in a statement.

Nigeria’s air force also struck targets in Benin, a source in the Nigerian presidency told AFP on Sunday, in what air force spokesperson Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame said was “in line with Ecowas protocols and the Ecowas standby force mandate”.

It was not clear what the targets of the strikes were.

Earlier on Sunday a group of soldiers had “launched a mutiny”, Benin’s interior minister Alassane Seidou said, “with the aim of destabilising the state and its institutions”.

The soldiers had appeared on Benin’s state TV to announce the dissolution of the government in the latest of many coups and attempted coups in West Africa.

The group, which called itself the Military Committee for Refoundation, announced the removal of the president and all state institutions. Lt Col Pascal Tigri was appointed president of the military committee, the soldiers said.

The rapid mobilisation of forces loyal to the government “allowed us to thwart these adventurers”, Talon said in remarks aired on state TV after the government regained control of the broadcaster.

“This treachery will not go unpunished,” he added.

The attempted coup was the latest threat to democratic rule in the region, where militaries have in recent years seized power in Benin’s neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as in Mali, Guinea and, only last month, Guinea-Bissau.

But it was a surprising development in Benin, where the last successful coup took place in 1972.

A government spokesperson, Wilfried Léandre Houngbedji, earlier said that 14 people had been arrested in connection with the coup attempt as of Sunday afternoon, without providing details.

The attempt came as Benin was preparing for a presidential election in April that would mark the end of the tenure of Talon, 67, who has held power since 2016.

In their televised statement, the coup plotters mentioned the deteriorating security situation in northern Benin “coupled with the disregard and neglect of our fallen brothers-in-arms”.

Talon has been credited with reviving the economy, but the country has also seen an increase in attacks by jihadist militants that have wreaked havoc in Mali and Burkina Faso.

Gunmen have stormed into a hostel in South Africa’s capital and killed at least 11 people, including a three-year-old child, police said.

“I can confirm that a total of 25 people were shot,” police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said of the early morning attack in Pretoria. She said 14 others had been hospitalised.

“Ten died on this particular scene, and one died in hospital,” added Mathe. Two of the young victims included a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl.

South African police have been grappling with violence linked to illegal bars, known as shebeens, which often sell homebrewed drinks that are substandard.

“What I can tell you is that these illegal shebeens are really giving us a problem as the police,” Mathe told the 24-hour eNCA news broadcaster. “Because a lot of murders are being reported at these illegal establishments.”

Forensic and ballistic experts were at the scene, alongside investigators. “So we are on a manhunt. For now, we are looking for three suspects,” Mathe said.

More details soon …

Gunmen have stormed into a hostel in South Africa’s capital and killed at least 11 people, including a three-year-old child, police said.

“I can confirm that a total of 25 people were shot,” police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said of the early morning attack in Pretoria. She said 14 others had been hospitalised.

“Ten died on this particular scene, and one died in hospital,” added Mathe. Two of the young victims included a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl.

South African police have been grappling with violence linked to illegal bars, known as shebeens, which often sell homebrewed drinks that are substandard.

“What I can tell you is that these illegal shebeens are really giving us a problem as the police,” Mathe told the 24-hour eNCA news broadcaster. “Because a lot of murders are being reported at these illegal establishments.”

Forensic and ballistic experts were at the scene, alongside investigators. “So we are on a manhunt. For now, we are looking for three suspects,” Mathe said.

More details soon …

Gunmen have stormed into a hostel in South Africa’s capital and killed at least 11 people, including a three-year-old child, police said.

“I can confirm that a total of 25 people were shot,” police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said of the early morning attack in Pretoria. She said 14 others had been hospitalised.

“Ten died on this particular scene, and one died in hospital,” added Mathe. Two of the young victims included a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl.

South African police have been grappling with violence linked to illegal bars, known as shebeens, which often sell homebrewed drinks that are substandard.

“What I can tell you is that these illegal shebeens are really giving us a problem as the police,” Mathe told the 24-hour eNCA news broadcaster. “Because a lot of murders are being reported at these illegal establishments.”

Forensic and ballistic experts were at the scene, alongside investigators. “So we are on a manhunt. For now, we are looking for three suspects,” Mathe said.

More details soon …

Fresh fighting in eastern DR Congo has forced hundreds to flee across the border into Rwanda, a day after a peace deal was signed in Washington DC.

Thursday’s agreement was meant to stabilise the resource-rich east but it has had little visible effect on the ground so far, in an area plagued by conflict for 30 years.

On Friday, fighters from the anti-government armed group M23 battled in South Kivu province with the Congolese army, backed by thousands of Burundian soldiers deployed alongside it.

Both sides are fighting for control of the border town of Kamanyola – where the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi meet. M23 is now in control there.

Detonations that shook buildings echoed throughout the morning near Kamanyola, an AFP journalist reported in Bugarama, a border post on the Rwandan side about 2km (1.3 miles) away.

On Friday, the M23 accused the Burundian army of firing “without interruption” into the DRC.

A Burundian military source told AFP they were reinforcing their positions to ensure they were not overrun by M23 fighters and their Rwandan backers.

“The fighting is intensifying,” the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a real risk the situation escalates. We are bringing reinforcements to the front because this is a red line for Burundi.”

The source said his country could not accept it if “the terrorists of M23 and their Rwandan backers reach Uvira”, a city in DRC less than 30km from Bujumbura, Burundi’s biggest city.

Lines of civilians fleeing the fighting crossed the border in the early hours watched by Rwandan police.

“The bombs were exploding above the houses,” said one witness, Immaculee Antoinette, from Ruhumba, near Kamanyola. “We were asked to remain locked inside our houses, but that seemed impossible.”

Hassan Shabani, an administrative official in Kamanyola, said schools, hospitals and civilian homes were all shelled.

On the Rwandan side, some residents were “scouring the hills from where the shots are coming, in small groups”, said a local woman, Farizi Bizimana. “The children and women are very scared and take refuge in houses when the gunfire becomes intense,” she added.

In January, M23 backed by Kigali and its army went on the offensive, capturing the major regional cities of Goma in North Kivu province and Bukavu in South Kivu.

On Thursday in Washington, DR Congo’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, and Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, signed an agreement that their host, the US president, Donald Trump, called a “miracle”.

More than 60,000 penguins in colonies off the coast of South Africa have starved to death as a result of disappearing sardines, a new paper has found.

More than 95% of the African penguins in two of the most important breeding colonies, on Dassen Island and Robben Island, died between 2004 and 2012. The breeding penguins probably starved to death during the moulting period, according to the paper, which said the climate crisis and overfishing were driving declines.

The losses that researchers recorded in those colonies were not isolated, said the paper, which was published in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology. “These declines are mirrored elsewhere,” said Dr Richard Sherley, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter. The African penguin species has undergone a population decline of nearly 80% in 30 years.

African penguins shed and replace their worn-out feathers every year to protect their insulation and waterproofing. However, during the moulting period, which takes about 21 days, they have to stay on land. To survive this fasting period, they need to fatten up beforehand. “If food is too hard to find before they moult or immediately afterwards, they will have insufficient reserves to survive the fast,” said Sherley. “We don’t find large rafts of carcasses – our sense is that they probably die at sea,” he said.

For every year except three since 2004, the biomass of the sardine species Sardinops sagax had fallen to 25% of its maximum abundance off the coast of western South Africa, the study found. The fish are a key food for African penguins. Changes in the temperature and salinity off the west coast of Africa have made the fishes’ spawning less successful. Levels of fishing, however, have remained high in the region.

In 2024, African penguins were classified as critically endangered, with fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs left.

More sustainable fisheries management could improve the penguins’ chances of survival. Conservationists are taking action on the ground, by building artificial nests to shelter chicks, managing predators and hand-rearing adults and chicks who need rescuing. Commercial purse-seine fishing, which involves encircling a school of fish with a large net and then trapping them by closing the bottom, has been banned around the six largest penguin-breeding colonies in South Africa.

It is hoped this will “increase access to prey for penguins at critical parts of their life cycle”, said the study co-author Dr Azwianewi Makhado, from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment in South Africa.

Lorien Pichegru, a professor of marine biology at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, who was not involved in the study, said the results were “extremely concerning” and highlighted decades-long mismanagement of small fish populations in South Africa. “The results of the study are only based on penguins’ survival until 2011, but the situation has not improved over time,” she said.

Pichegru said addressing extremely low levels of small fish stocks required urgent action, “not only for African penguins but also for other endemic species depending on these stocks”.

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

The Sudanese city of El Fasher resembles a “massive crime scene”, with large piles of bodies heaped throughout its streets as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) work to destroy evidence of the scale of their massacre.

Six weeks after the RSF seized the city, corpses have been gathered together in scores of piles to await burial in mass graves or cremated in huge pits, analysis indicates.

With the capital of North Darfur state still sealed off to outsiders, including UN war crimes investigators, satellite evidence has revealed a network of newly dug incineration and burial pits thought to be for the disposal of large numbers of bodies.

While the final death toll of the massacre remains unclear, British MPs have been briefed that at least 60,000 have been murdered in El Fasher.

Sarah Champion, chair of the Commons international development select committee, said: “Members received a private briefing on Sudan, at which one of the academics stated: ‘Our low estimate is 60,000 people have been killed there in the last three weeks.’”

As many as 150,000 residents of El Fasher remain unaccounted for since the city fell to the RSF. They are not thought to have left the city, and this grisly development comes amid increasingly gloomy speculation about their fate.

Nathaniel Raymond, director of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which has been closely analysing satellite images of El Fasher, said the city was eerily empty, with once-bustling markets now desolate.

Yale’s latest analysis suggests marketplaces are now so unused that they are becoming overgrown and that all the livestock appears to have been moved out of the city,which had 1.5 million inhabitants before the war began in April 2023.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like a slaughterhouse,” said Raymond.

No expert or agency has been able to explain the whereabouts of the tens of thousands of residents who have been missing since El Fasher – the army’s last major stronghold in the region – was overrun on 26 October after the RSF’s brutal 500-day starvation siege.

The Guardian has spoken to sources who describe El Fasher residents being held in detention centres in the city, though the numbers still detained are small.

RSF officials had pledged to allow the UN into El Fasher to deliver aid and investigate atrocities, but to date the city remains out of bounds for humanitarian organisations as well as UN officials.

Aid convoys are understood to be on standby in nearby towns and cities as negotiations for the RSF to give safety guarantees continue. So far the paramilitary group, now in its third year of civil war with Sudan’s armed forces, has refused.

A UN source said: “There needs to be a security assessment before we can plan on sending assistance. Right now, there is no guarantee of safe passage or protection of civilians, aid workers or humanitarian assets.”

Despite the uncertainty over how many residents might be alive inside El Fasher, the need for help to reach the city is deemed critical, with “staggering” levels of malnutrition reported among those who had escaped. International experts have declared the city to be in famine.

Raymond said some residents, with whom his team had now lost touch, had contacted them within the first two days of the attack alleging that up to 10,000 people had been killed.

Human rights experts now believe El Fasher is likely to be the worst war crime of the Sudanese civil war, which is already characterised by mass atrocities and ethnic cleansing.

Over 32 months of ruinous war, the country has been torn apart, with as many as 400,000 people killed and almost 13 million displaced. The conflict has caused the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

Meanwhile, there have been renewed calls for a thorough investigation into an RSF attack on the Zamzam displacement camp seven miles (12km) south of El Fasher six months earlier.

A new report by Amnesty International documents how the RSF targeted civilians, took hostages, and destroyed mosques and schools during a large-scale attack on Zamzam camp. It has called for the RSF to be “investigated for war crimes”.

More than 60,000 penguins in colonies off the coast of South Africa have starved to death as a result of disappearing sardines, a new paper has found.

More than 95% of the African penguins in two of the most important breeding colonies, on Dassen Island and Robben Island, died between 2004 and 2012. The breeding penguins probably starved to death during the moulting period, according to the paper, which said the climate crisis and overfishing were driving declines.

The losses that researchers recorded in those colonies were not isolated, said the paper, which was published in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology. “These declines are mirrored elsewhere,” said Dr Richard Sherley, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter. The African penguin species has undergone a population decline of nearly 80% in 30 years.

African penguins shed and replace their worn-out feathers every year to protect their insulation and waterproofing. However, during the moulting period, which takes about 21 days, they have to stay on land. To survive this fasting period, they need to fatten up beforehand. “If food is too hard to find before they moult or immediately afterwards, they will have insufficient reserves to survive the fast,” said Sherley. “We don’t find large rafts of carcasses – our sense is that they probably die at sea,” he said.

For every year except three since 2004, the biomass of the sardine species Sardinops sagax had fallen to 25% of its maximum abundance off the coast of western South Africa, the study found. The fish are a key food for African penguins. Changes in the temperature and salinity off the west coast of Africa have made the fishes’ spawning less successful. Levels of fishing, however, have remained high in the region.

In 2024, African penguins were classified as critically endangered, with fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs left.

More sustainable fisheries management could improve the penguins’ chances of survival. Conservationists are taking action on the ground, by building artificial nests to shelter chicks, managing predators and hand-rearing adults and chicks who need rescuing. Commercial purse-seine fishing, which involves encircling a school of fish with a large net and then trapping them by closing the bottom, has been banned around the six largest penguin-breeding colonies in South Africa.

It is hoped this will “increase access to prey for penguins at critical parts of their life cycle”, said the study co-author Dr Azwianewi Makhado, from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment in South Africa.

Lorien Pichegru, a professor of marine biology at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, who was not involved in the study, said the results were “extremely concerning” and highlighted decades-long mismanagement of small fish populations in South Africa. “The results of the study are only based on penguins’ survival until 2011, but the situation has not improved over time,” she said.

Pichegru said addressing extremely low levels of small fish stocks required urgent action, “not only for African penguins but also for other endemic species depending on these stocks”.

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

The US is considering a much broader range of sanctions on the belligerents in the war in Sudan, in a tacit acknowledgment of the inability of the US envoy Massad Boulos to persuade the parties to accept a ceasefire.

Last week Donald Trump announced that work had begun to end the war after a personal request for his direct intervention from the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

But Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, has in fact been trying for months to persuade the Sudanese army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, to back a ceasefire, to little end.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told a cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday that Trump was “the only leader in the world capable of resolving the Sudan crisis”.

An Arab diplomat said: “Trump injects momentum into peace processes. It’s what we do with it that matters.”

The Guardian understands that the warring parties have been told it is highly likely that Trump will use a far broader range of punitive sanctions on groups that he regards as standing in the way of a ceasefire.

Norway’s foreign ministry is preparing to invite a broad range of Sudanese society to Oslo in the coming weeks to map out the parameters of how a civilian government could be restored in the event of the conflict ending.

According to the UN, the war has killed 40,000 people – though some rights groups say the death toll is significantly higher – and has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 14 million people displaced.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have broadly supported the army, while the RSF has been backed by the United Arab Emirates. The effectiveness of Trump’s intervention may lie in privately persuading the UAE that its position – which it denies, despite evidence compiled by the UN, independent experts and reporters – is counterproductive. It may also require the Saudis to weaken their insistence on the continuance of Sudan’s “legitimate institutions” – diplomatic code for preserving the existing Islamist-influenced army.

The belated move of Sudan up the US agenda came as the UN human rights chief warned that since 25 October, when the RSF captured the city of Bara in North Kordofan, there had been at least 269 civilian deaths from aerial strikes, artillery shelling and summary executions.

After the intervention of the Saudi crown prince, it is likely the US will be willing to broaden sanctions against the warring parties, as well as take steps to enforce and extend the widely abused UN arms embargo on Darfur. So far US sanctions have been confined to the RSF and army leaderships, a small group of Sudanese Islamists linked to the army, and some UAE-based firms.

On 21 September the so-called quad – the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt – put forward a plan for a three-month humanitarian truce leading to a nine-month political process and resulting in civilian rule.

The RSF pretended to accept, but continued fighting, and the army angrily rejected the roadmap, accusing the quad of bias and in the process infuriating Boulos. The army said the proposal entailed the disbandment of the army, the cornerstone of its power base.

Norway’s deputy foreign minister, Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik, was in Port Sudan last week meeting the army leadership. “Without a ceasefire, the country will continue to fragment, with serious consequences for the entire region,” Kravik said. “Norway hopes in the coming weeks to bring together civilian society to Oslo to discuss how a civilian government can be prepared.”

At the same time, Trump’s threat to label the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organisation, supported this week by the House foreign relations committee, may weaken the army since it is often accused of having extensive links with the movement.

White House attention on the Sudan crisis will also have been spurred by renewed reports that the army may be willing to provide an extended port lease to Russia, as well as claims that it has denied UN authorities access to evaluate claims it has used chemical weapons.

The UAE, which opposes the influence of Islamism in politics, says rooting out the Muslim Brotherhood must remain the key factor in the west’s approach to the region.

Speaking at the Chatham House thinktank this week, Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE minister of state, said the solution to the conflict laid in returning Sudan to a broad-based civilian government. “We cannot see the political rehabilitation of either warring party,” she said. “Both the RSF and the Port Sudan Authority [her term for the army] have committed grave violations, disgraced themselves, and in the views of the international community neither has a legitimate claim to shape Sudan’s future.”

On Thursday the UN’s human rights chief issued a stark warning about Sudan, saying he feared “a new wave of atrocities” amid a surge in fierce fighting in the Kordofan region. Volker Türk urged “all states with influence over the parties to take immediate action to halt the fighting, and stop the arms flows that are fuelling the conflict”.

Up to 6,500 people are at risk of being displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project funded by the EU and the US, amid a global race to secure supplies of copper, cobalt and other “critical minerals”, according to a report by campaign group Global Witness.

The project, labelled the Lobito Corridor, aims to upgrade the colonial-era Benguela railway from the DRC to Lobito on Angola’s coast and improve port infrastructure, as well as building a railway line to Zambia and supporting agriculture and solar power installations along the route. Angola has said it needs $4.5bn (£3.4bn) for its stretch of the line.

The project is designed to facilitate the export of minerals used in green energy technologies, such as electric car batteries. It comes as western countries, China and Gulf states vie to control the critical minerals trade.

Up to 1,200 buildings are at risk of demolition due to the planned rehabilitation of the stretch of railway from the Congolese mining city of Kolwezi to the Angolan border, most in Kolwezi itself, Global Witness estimated, based on analysis of satellite data.

Many poorer residents of the Kolwezi neighbourhood Bel Air have built houses and businesses close to the railway line. A buffer zone where construction is not allowed was previously rarely enforced, according to Global Witness.

The line has mostly been out of use since the 1980s, until recently when the line started to be rehabilitated. Lobito Atlantic Railway – a consortium of companies including Portuguese construction company Mota-Engil, Singapore-headquartered commodity trader Trafigura and Belgian railway operator Vecturis – won a 30-year concession to operate the Benguela Railway in 2023.

Some residents bought land from vendors who may not have owned it, a community leader named only as Emmanuel told Global Witness.

Others said they had bought plots from workers who had been given land by their employer, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer du Congo (SNCC), the DRC state railway company.

Jean-Pierre Kalenga, the minister for land affairs in Lualaba province, where Kolwezi is located, said people living inside the buffer zone were “illegals”, according to Global Witness. The Guardian has approached the DRC national communications ministry for comment.

“You can’t say [the residents] are ‘illegal’. No one has prevented them from building. They’ve been left to live there for 10, 20, 30 years,” Donat Kambola, the president of a local non-profit organisation, Initiative pour la Bonne Gouvernance et les Droits Humains (IBGDH), told Global Witness.

There was also disagreement over the size of the buffer zone where construction is not allowed. Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR) said it was 10 metres either side of the tracks. However, Congolese officials and a member of the SNCC union told Global Witness it was 25 metres either side.

A LAR spokesperson said: “Lobito Atlantic Railway consortium is providing financing for the existing railway in the DRC, in exchange for use of the line. SNCC retains full responsibility for the line’s maintenance and operation within the DRC.

“LAR Consortium is not aware of, and has not been presented with, any evidence to support the claim that 6,500 people residing in the informal settlement of Bel Air in Kolwezi could be displaced by the ongoing project to rehabilitate the existing railway in the DRC.”

Kolwezi residents interviewed by Global Witness said they feared being forcibly evicted without compensation, claiming they knew of houses that were demolished without payment to make way for new roads and mines.

When it secured the concession, LAR committed to spending $455m on the 835-mile Angola section of the railway and $100m on the 249-mile DRC segment. Western financing pledges include a $553m loan from the US government’s development finance corporation for Lobito port and the Angola railway and €50m (£44m) from the EU to upgrade Zambian rail infrastructure.

An EU commission spokesperson said: “The project is still at an early stage. Any possible impacts linked to the planned rehabilitation of the Lobito railway line in the DRC will be assessed through a full feasibility study and detailed technical design, which also includes an independent environmental and social impact assessment study. These are still under way.

“What we can confirm is that the EU applies the highest social and environmental standards in all the projects it finances.

“These foresee, among others, thorough consultations with relevant communities and, where needed, a resettlement action plan to ensure fair compensation and support.

“The EU is not involved in the rehabilitation works currently carried out by SNCC or the LAR consortium. We therefore have no additional information to provide at this stage.”

Up to 6,500 people are at risk of being displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project funded by the EU and the US, amid a global race to secure supplies of copper, cobalt and other “critical minerals”, according to a report by campaign group Global Witness.

The project, labelled the Lobito Corridor, aims to upgrade the colonial-era Benguela railway from the DRC to Lobito on Angola’s coast and improve port infrastructure, as well as building a railway line to Zambia and supporting agriculture and solar power installations along the route. Angola has said it needs $4.5bn (£3.4bn) for its stretch of the line.

The project is designed to facilitate the export of minerals used in green energy technologies, such as electric car batteries. It comes as western countries, China and Gulf states vie to control the critical minerals trade.

Up to 1,200 buildings are at risk of demolition due to the planned rehabilitation of the stretch of railway from the Congolese mining city of Kolwezi to the Angolan border, most in Kolwezi itself, Global Witness estimated, based on analysis of satellite data.

Many poorer residents of the Kolwezi neighbourhood Bel Air have built houses and businesses close to the railway line. A buffer zone where construction is not allowed was previously rarely enforced, according to Global Witness.

The line has mostly been out of use since the 1980s, until recently when the line started to be rehabilitated. Lobito Atlantic Railway – a consortium of companies including Portuguese construction company Mota-Engil, Singapore-headquartered commodity trader Trafigura and Belgian railway operator Vecturis – won a 30-year concession to operate the Benguela Railway in 2023.

Some residents bought land from vendors who may not have owned it, a community leader named only as Emmanuel told Global Witness.

Others said they had bought plots from workers who had been given land by their employer, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer du Congo (SNCC), the DRC state railway company.

Jean-Pierre Kalenga, the minister for land affairs in Lualaba province, where Kolwezi is located, said people living inside the buffer zone were “illegals”, according to Global Witness. The Guardian has approached the DRC national communications ministry for comment.

“You can’t say [the residents] are ‘illegal’. No one has prevented them from building. They’ve been left to live there for 10, 20, 30 years,” Donat Kambola, the president of a local non-profit organisation, Initiative pour la Bonne Gouvernance et les Droits Humains (IBGDH), told Global Witness.

There was also disagreement over the size of the buffer zone where construction is not allowed. Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR) said it was 10 metres either side of the tracks. However, Congolese officials and a member of the SNCC union told Global Witness it was 25 metres either side.

A LAR spokesperson said: “Lobito Atlantic Railway consortium is providing financing for the existing railway in the DRC, in exchange for use of the line. SNCC retains full responsibility for the line’s maintenance and operation within the DRC.

“LAR Consortium is not aware of, and has not been presented with, any evidence to support the claim that 6,500 people residing in the informal settlement of Bel Air in Kolwezi could be displaced by the ongoing project to rehabilitate the existing railway in the DRC.”

Kolwezi residents interviewed by Global Witness said they feared being forcibly evicted without compensation, claiming they knew of houses that were demolished without payment to make way for new roads and mines.

When it secured the concession, LAR committed to spending $455m on the 835-mile Angola section of the railway and $100m on the 249-mile DRC segment. Western financing pledges include a $553m loan from the US government’s development finance corporation for Lobito port and the Angola railway and €50m (£44m) from the EU to upgrade Zambian rail infrastructure.

An EU commission spokesperson said: “The project is still at an early stage. Any possible impacts linked to the planned rehabilitation of the Lobito railway line in the DRC will be assessed through a full feasibility study and detailed technical design, which also includes an independent environmental and social impact assessment study. These are still under way.

“What we can confirm is that the EU applies the highest social and environmental standards in all the projects it finances.

“These foresee, among others, thorough consultations with relevant communities and, where needed, a resettlement action plan to ensure fair compensation and support.

“The EU is not involved in the rehabilitation works currently carried out by SNCC or the LAR consortium. We therefore have no additional information to provide at this stage.”

The Ugandan government has stopped granting asylum and refugee status to people from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia, citing severe funding shortfalls for the significant policy shift.

Hillary Onek, Uganda’s minister for refugees, announced that the government would no longer grant the status to new arrivals from countries “not experiencing war”.

“I have instructed our officers not to give refugee status to citizens from those countries … especially those coming from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, because there is no war there,” he said late last week.

The decision, from a country seen as one of the world’s most progressive in its approach to migration, has raised concerns that thousands of people will be left in legal and humanitarian limbo.

Onek put the blame on a lack of money. “The situation is dire, and it is our people who shoulder those costs,” he said.

“Uganda used to get $240m per year from [the UN refugee agency] UNHCR, but with an increased refugee population of almost 2 million people, we now get less than $100m,” Onek said, adding that this year, the country had received only $18m (£14m).

The minister was speaking at the handover of 2,544 tonnes of rice donated by South Korea to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which will support about 600,000 refugees across 13 settlements. The contribution, worth $2.9m, was received at the UN agency’s warehouse in the northern Ugandan city of Gulu.

Uganda hosts an asylum and refugee population of nearly 2 million – the largest in Africa – including more than 56,000 Eritreans, nearly 50,000 Somalis and about 16,000 Ethiopians, according to UNHCR. Many have fled forced conscription, political or religious persecution, and climate crisis-related crises.

One Eritrean refugee official based in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “This is a very complicated matter and has a life-threatening risk. It’s a very dangerous move that puts at risk the lives of hundreds of people.”

Donald Trump’s freeze on US aid spending and the UK’s planned reduction in aid spending from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% by 2027 are among the cuts that have badly hit Uganda’s ability to look after refugees and will, analysts say, push people into displaced person camps or back into conflict zones.

Abdullahi Halakhe, a senior advocate at the humanitarian organisation Refugees International, said Uganda’s directive was part of a larger global clampdown. “For many refugees affected, this will be a massive blow,” he said.

“They cannot go back to their home country; they cannot have third-country resettlement; and they cannot be integrated in the country of refugees. They’re left in a limbo,” Halakhe said.

Uganda’s 2025 refugee response plan, budgeted at $968m, remains severely underfunded, with the UNHCR saying in August that only 25% had been secured, raising concerns over the country’s ability to sustain essential services and threatening to undo years of progress for its refugee population.

The announcement marks a big shift for Uganda, which has long had a more liberal policy towards arrivals from other countries, with refugees allowed to work in the country and access public services.

Halakhe said: “It’s a massive step backwards from Uganda after years of being a leader in a progressive refugee policy.”

In February, the WFP cut food rations for a million people in the east African country amid a funding crisis after severe cuts in aid from the US and European countries, raising fears that refugees and asylum seekers would be pushed back into countries at war.

The UNHCR was approached for comment.

The Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has become the first African to be named the most influential figure in the art world in ArtReview magazine’s annual power list.

Mahama, whose work often uses found materials including textile remnants, topped the ranking of the contemporary art world’s most influential people and organisations as chosen by a global judging panel.

He told the Guardian he felt humbled to be named at the top of a list he first heard about while studying at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana in 2011, when the Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei topped the ranking.

He said: “For me to be part of this, especially coming from a place like Ghana, which for many years was almost as if we were not even part of the discourse, is quite humbling.”

Mahama, who is based in Ghana’s northern city of Tamale, said he hoped his success could inspire younger artists in his country to “realise that they are part of the contemporary discourse and not just on the sideline”.

Mark Rappolt, ArtReview’s editor-in-chief, said the choice of Mahama indicated that the seat of power was shifting in the world of art.

He said: “I think you could also look at that as saying there’s a realignment of where global finance sits … I wouldn’t say that the art world is separate from those worlds. The MENA region has historically always been a bridge between east and west.”

The power list’s top 10 features several artists and curators from the Middle East and Africa. Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, one of the most powerful women in Qatar and the chair of Qatar Museums since 2006, is at No 2, in part due to her immense purchasing power.

Last year’s No 1, Sheikha Hoor al-Qasimi, the president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates, slips two places to No 3, and the Egyptian artist Wael Shawky comes in at No 4.

Singapore’s Ho Tzu Nyen (5), the Americans Amy Sherald (6), Kerry James Marshall (7) and Saidiya Hartman (8), the UK-based group Forensic Architecture (9) and Germany’s Wolfgang Tillmans (10) round out the top 10.

Mahama has had an incredibly busy couple of years. He is represented by the influential Apalazzo Gallery and White Cube galleries and his practice includes using old hospital beds, discarded train carriages and other artefacts that he turns into art objects.

Last year at the Edinburgh festival, Mahama’s Songs About Roses, which focused on the rise and fall of the railway that the British government built in Ghana between 1898 and 1923, was described as being “as extraordinary as a great magic-realist novel”.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones said the work’s reckoning with history’s ghosts “puts Mahama up there with William Kentridge and Anselm Kiefer as one of today’s most important artists”.

A few months before his Edinburgh show opened, Mahama draped the Barbican in 2,000 sq metres of bright pink fabric, which had been stitched together in a football field in Ghana because it was so large.

In 2019, Mahama opened the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art in Tamale, a 900 sq metre site that is an exhibition space, library, residency space, archive and studio.

Rappolt said many of the highest-ranking artists ran programmes in their local communities. He said of Mahama: “He’s not acting as this classic idea of the sole artist producing his own the flashes of genius, but also as a person who’s part of a community.”

Thirty anonymous experts from around the world compiled the annual power ranking, which has been running for 24 years.

A report by the Kenyan parliament into the conduct of troops stationed at a British military base close to the town of Nanyuki in Kenya has alleged human rights violations, environmental destruction and sexual abuse by British soldiers.

The inquiry into the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk) was carried out by the Departmental Committee on Defencе, Intelligence and Foreign Relations. It collected testimony at public hearings in Laikipia County and Samburu County, and also received oral and written submissions from affected civilians, victims, community leaders, civil society organisations and relevant public agencies.

“Throughout the inquiry, the committee encountered significant institutional resistance and non-cooperation from Batuk, which persistently declined to appear before the committee and instead invoked claims of diplomatic immunity,” the report read.

The inquiry, chaired by the MP Nelson Koech, “uncovered a disturbing trend of sexual misconduct by Batuk personnel, marked by rape, assault, and abandonment of children fathered by soldiers.”

“Survivors of sexual violence reported cases being dropped or mishandled by local authorities, with many victims denied access to justice,” the report said, adding that an internal inquiry by Batuk between 2003 and 2004 into rape allegations “was found to have seized evidence and dismissed most complaints as false, without publishing its findings.”

“These cases were compounded by the absence of any mechanism within either the UK or Kenyan justice systems to hold Batuk soldiers accountable for child support or other consequences of such misconduct,” the report said.

The inquiry also “noted with deep concern” the killing of Agnes Wanjiru, whose body was found in a septic tank in the grounds of a hotel where she had been drinking with British soldiers two months after she disappeared in 2012.

The report said: “It was submitted that the process of investigation has faced undue interference and obstruction, allegedly by Batuk personnel, which continues to hinder the delivery of justice.”

A former British soldier has been arrested in relation to Wanjiru’s death and extradition proceedings have started. He denies the charge and has said he intends to contest the extradition.

Among other allegations detailed in the 94-page document are that a man named Tilam Leresh was shot and killed by a Batuk officer while herding livestock, that local people had been injured by unexploded ordinance and a former G4S supervisor at Batuk alleged that military aircraft had deliberately frightened livestock, causing distress to farmers.

“The committee received extensive evidence of environmental degradation caused by Batuk’s activities,” the report said. “Many witnesses expressed concern that Batuk’s military exercises have caused serious ecological damage in the training areas of Laikipia and Samburu, with corresponding harm to public health, livelihoods and conservation efforts.”

The region is home to wildlife including elephants, big cats and rare species such as the Grévy’s zebra. “Loud explosions, heavy troop movements and occasional training-related bushfires have disrupted wildlife habitats and migration corridors, often driving animals into nearby farms and settlements,” the report said.

The report also detailed an incident in 2021, when “during a military exercise at the conservancy, Batuk personnel were reported to have caused a fire that engulfed over 10,000 acres of land”.

“The inferno led to substantial destruction of local flora and fauna, forced wildlife to flee the area and displaced residents of the surrounding Lolldaiga region, who were exposed to noxious fumes and intense heat carried by strong winds over the Lolldaiga Hills,” the report said.

The inquiry made a number of recommendations, including the development of a visiting forces code of conduct to include zero tolerance of sexual violence, as well as setting out environmental obligations and social responsibility.

It also recommended the establishment of a survivor liaison unit to offer legal aid to victims of crimes linked to Batuk personnel, for the British and Kenyan governments to negotiate “mechanisms to hold Batuk soldiers accountable for child support” and the creation of a military-linked crimes taskforce to oversee investigation and prosecution of offences committed by foreign military personnel.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We were grateful for the opportunity to submit evidence to Kenya’s National Assembly Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committee’s inquiry into conduct at the British Army Training Unit Kenya and note the publishing of the inquiry report today.

“We deeply regret the challenges which have arisen in relation to our defence presence in Kenya. Our statement – offered in the spirit of cooperation to the committee – responded to the issues highlighted during the inquiry into Batuk and outlined the actions taken to address the concerns raised. Where new allegations have come to light in the committee’s report, we stand ready to investigate those under our jurisdiction fully once evidence is provided.”

Warnings of a possible “genocide” in Sudan were removed from a UK risk assessment by Foreign Office officials, according to a whistleblower whose testimony raises fresh concern over British failures to act on the atrocities unfolding in the war-ravaged country.

The threat analyst said they were prevented from warning that genocide could occur in Darfur by Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) officials in a humanitarian risk assessment collated days after Sudan’s brutal civil war erupted in April 2023.

The analyst, requesting anonymity, believes the decision may have been taken to protect the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a key UK ally accused of arming the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) perpetrating genocidal violence in Sudan.

“The word genocide was removed from our report. Anyone who has studied Sudan – its patterns of behaviour – knew genocide was a risk,” said the analyst, who produced a regular early-warning assessment for the FCDO, reports which can be disseminated throughout government departments.

It amounted to “censoring”, they said, and was particularly disturbing as the UK is the UN security council’s “penholder” on Sudan, meaning it leads the council’s activities on the conflict.

Meanwhile, a former FCDO official linked to the department’s atrocity prevention team told the Guardian that they also believed the suppression of the risk of genocide in Sudan was to protect the UAE from scrutiny.

Difficulties raising atrocity concerns over Darfur, they said, were comparable to problems they experienced flagging human rights concerns relating to conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

They likened the way in which the UK maintained close relations with Rwanda – despite Kigali’s military support for the M23 militia in eastern Congo – with how the UK has stayed close to the UAE despite its backing for the RSF (which the Gulf state denies).

DRC atrocity assessments were “dropped for political reasons”, the former official claimed, adding: “That pattern of behaviour looks to have been repeated for Sudan.”

However, the FCDO said a formal determination of genocide was never a political consideration.

A spokesperson said: “The UK does not make formal determinations of genocide on the basis of politics.

“It does so based on the judgment of a competent court, after consideration of all the evidence available in the context of a credible judicial process, and there is currently no such judgment in the context of Sudan.”

Shortly after the April 2023 report warning of genocide was finalised for the FCDO, ethnic violence was already sweeping through Darfur. This vast western region is where the Janjaweed, the predominantly Arab militia that was the forerunner of the RSF, perpetrated a genocide estimated to have killed 300,000 Sudanese two decades ago.

Two months after the allegedly censored document, possible genocide was committed by the RSF in the Darfuri city of El Geneina. The UN estimates about 15,000 people from non-Arab and ethnic African communities were killed.

The analyst alleged that even after the atrocities in El Geneina, the word genocide was prohibited from their risk assessments.

El Fasher, another regional capital in Darfur, was seized by the RSF last month, prompting systematic mass killings that experts have likened to the opening days of the genocide in Rwanda.

With the city sealed off and in effect a massive crime scene, intelligence suggests the RSF has spent weeks disposing of evidence, with experts detecting mass graves and possibly bodies being burned. Tens of thousands of the city’s residents are still missing.

Days after Sudan’s war began on 15 April 2023, analysts submitted an assessment to FCDO officials outlining possible crisis scenarios that could also be passed to the UN’s early-warning systems, British intelligence or “Cobra” meetings, where senior ministers convene to coordinate the emergency response to a disaster.

The analyst said that instead of being allowed to warn of the “risk of genocide in Darfur”, they had to state instead that there was a danger that Darfur might return to conflicts previously witnessed in the region.

“I didn’t understand the head-in-the-sand attitude – the need to find more amenable language to an obvious risk,” they added.

The final report has been seen by the Guardian but specific details are not being reported to protect the identity of authors.

Abdallah Abu Garda, chair of the UK-based Darfur Diaspora Association, said the news raised “extremely grave” issues.

“Our concern is that Foreign Office officials appear to have deliberately downplayed the risk of genocide precisely as Sudan was descending into one of the worst episodes of mass atrocities in recent memory,” he said.

For years before war erupted, experts had issued warnings of the rising risks of mass atrocities in Sudan.

In 2022 the UK Civil Society Atrocity Prevention Working Group, an umbrella organisation of human rights groups, wrote to ministers with concerns “that the UK’s systems, capabilities and policies towards Sudan still lack a focus on atrocity prevention, grievance and political marginalisation”.

These warnings were repeated in June 2023, as atrocities were committed in El Geneina. Experts warned MPs on the foreign affairs select committee of continuing risks of atrocities across Sudan and that the FCDO’s Sudan team was ill-equipped to respond.

Kate Ferguson, a foreign policy expert on mass violence, and co-executive director of Protection Approaches, told MPs that she believed even “when those warnings are being raised, whether in West Darfur or in Khartoum, [the FCDO] don’t have a system by which those warnings can be easily, rapidly and urgently raised to the ministerial office”.

Approached for comment on what she felt had changed since 2023, Ferguson said: “It is difficult to see how our years of raising alarm of genocide returning to Darfur, and of warning the FCDO they needed to prioritise atrocity prevention, has translated into clear UK policy to prevent or protect – even now, with tens of thousands missing from El Fasher, facing unthinkable peril or [who] are already dead.”

“Halting genocide is not easy but it is possible,” she added. “That’s why it is essential our foreign secretary and prime minister have full confidence in the analysis of atrocity violence they receive and that prevention options passed up for decision-making match ministerial ambitions and obligations to protect civilians in Sudan.

“The RSF’s assault on black and Indigenous civilians will continue – our government’s expertise and systems must be fit for the urgent purpose of averting further catastrophe in [nearby] Tawila displacement camp and across Sudan.”

Meanwhile, the former FCDO expert within the Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation, revealed that raising atrocity concerns over Darfur was similar to problems they had experienced relating to the Congo.

“We were persistently warning about atrocity risks in DRC, but this was the time of the government’s Rwanda policy [the UK’s proposed scheme to send asylum seekers to Kigali] and they didn’t want to know because it would go against British interests.

“It felt we were getting into very similar territory on Sudan. You need to consider the [United Arab] Emirates to explain why people were struggling with how to talk about Sudan.

“What I can say is that from the outset of the war, evidence started to come in about Emirati involvement, progressively more and more,” said the former FCDO official.

The UAE has repeatedly denied providing arms to the RSF.

At the same time, the former official added, the FCDO was amassing evidence that genocide was likely to unfold again in Darfur.

They said that a system for tracking the Sudan conflict was monitoring RSF recruits who had expressed ambitions to eradicate ethnic Africans from Darfur. “People were expressing genocidal intent,” they said.

Although the US formally declared in January that genocide had been committed in Sudan by members of the RSF, the UK has not followed suit.

The UK has said the determination of genocide was an issue for competent courts to decide, but it would act to prevent atrocities.

However, the former FCDO expert said this did not explain why genocide was removed from the early-warning report.

“In this scenario, its use is totally acceptable because you’re portraying a worst-case scenario that would be difficult to describe without saying the word,” they added.

The analyst added that attempts to flag that Sudan appeared to be heading to conflict were also not signed off by FCDO officials.

“We kept trying to raise Sudan [as an urgent issue] in February [2023], then March, but there was no traction,” they added.

An FCDO source said the UK was committed to upholding its obligations under the UN genocide convention and strongly advocated for accountability for all breaches of international law.

They added that the UK supported the work of the UN Fact-Finding Mission and the international criminal court and was funding a project to document and verify attacks on civilians.

Abu Garda added: “Britain’s failure to properly assess and recognise ongoing atrocities has fostered impunity and contributed directly to further genocidal campaigns in El Geneina, in Zamzam camp, and now in El Fasher.

“The British government must uphold its moral and legal responsibilities and act decisively to prevent genocide rather than minimise or obscure it for political or economic convenience.”

Donald Trump on Tuesday called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said they should be sent back home in a rant that came as the administration is reportedly increasing immigration enforcement against undocumented Somalis in Minnesota.

In a xenophobic rant during a cabinet meeting, Trump went off on Somalis and Ilhan Omar, the representative who is from Somalia and is a US citizen. He said Somalia “stinks” and is “no good for a reason”.

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” he said. He called Omar “garbage” and said “we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country”.

“These are people who do nothing but complain,” he said. “They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing. … When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it”.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Minneapolis-St Paul metro area, where most Somalis reside, would see stepped-up deportation efforts this week, focusing primarily on Somalis who have final deportation orders. It would use “strike teams” of ICE agents and other federal officers, bringing in about 100 agents from across the country, the Times reported. Other media outlets, including the Associated Press, have confirmed the reporting.

The move comes after the right has seized on several fraud cases, spanning multiple years, that involve dozens of Somali residents who prosecutors allege lied to the state to receive reimbursements for meal disbursements, medical care, housing and autism services. The Trump administration previously threatened to revoketemporary protected status for Somalis in Minnesota, citing the state as a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity”.

Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, also announced on Monday that his agency would be investigating whether taxpayer dollars from Minnesotans had “been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab”, sharing a recent story from a rightwing outlet that made such claims.

Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, and other city leaders held a press conference on Tuesday to respond to the “credible reports” of increased enforcement. Frey said the city stands with the Somali community. Minneapolis police don’t assist with immigration enforcement, and the police chief said the department doesn’t receive advanced notice of any operations.

“To our Somali community, we love you and we stand with you,” Frey said. “That commitment is rock solid.”

Minneapolis is home to the country’s largest Somali population, with about 80,000 living in the state. Most are US citizens or legal residents.

“Targeting Somali people means that due process will be violated, mistakes will be made, and let’s be clear, it means that American citizens will be detained for no other reason than they look Somali,” Frey said.

Five South Africans have appeared in court on charges relating to recruitment and fighting for Russia in its war with Ukraine, amid allegations that 17 South Africans had been tricked on to the frontlines of the conflict.

A female suspect was arrested on Thursday on her return to South Africa at OR Tambo international airport outside Johannesburg, police said. Three suspects were arrested at the airport on Friday and another on Saturday.

A police statement said: “The arrests emanate from a tipoff from OR Tambo SAPS [South African police service] regarding three males en route to Russia via the United Arab Emirates who were removed from the boarding gate as suspicious and referred to the Hawks’ [the directorate for priority crime investigation] crimes against the state section.

“Preliminary investigation revealed that a South African female had been facilitating the travel and recruitment of these individuals into the Russian Federation military.”

The five suspects who appeared at a brief hearing and were remanded in custody were Nonkululeko Mantula, 39, a national radio presenter; Thulani Mazibuko, 24; Xolani Ntuli, 47; Siphamandla Tshabalala, 23; and Sfiso Mabena, 21. Proceedings were postponed until a bail hearing on 8 December.

The arrests come after competing police affidavits filed by two daughters of the former South African president Jacob Zuma. It is illegal for South Africans to fight for or help foreign militaries without government authorisation.

On 6 November, the office of South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said it was investigating how the men became trapped in eastern Ukraine and was working to bring them home.

On 22 November, Nkosazana Zuma-Mncube filed a police report alleging that her sister Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla and two others, Siphokazi Xuma and Blessing Khoza, had recruited 17 men, including eight Zuma relatives, by telling them they would be training as bodyguards for the Zumas’ uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.

Zuma-Sambudla claimed she was deceived by Khoza into recruiting for what she thought was a legitimate course, after she attended the training for a month in Russia. The 43-year-old resigned as an MK MP last week.

Russia’s embassy in South Africa did not reply immediately to a request for comment.

South Africans’ attention was also piqued by the allegations against Mantula, who hosted the Morning Bliss, a 3-5am show on SAfm, a radio station owned by the national South African Broadcasting Corporation. Posts on her Instagram account on 9 November showed her speaking at events in Moscow.

According to her social media, Mantula was co-chair of the Brics Journalists Association. Brics is a non-western bloc of countries that includes Russia and South Africa.

The Brics Journalists Association was put under sanctions in July by the EU, which said it was a Russian NGO founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the Russian mercenary Wagner group until he was killed in a plane crash in 2023.

The EU’s sanctions tracker said: “The BJA has been used as a vehicle to disseminate pro-Russian narratives and disinformation under the guise of independent journalism, including fake content originating from the Storm-1516 information manipulation set).”

In Mozambique, a teenage rape victim sought care at a health clinic only to find it closed. In Zimbabwe, Aids-related deaths have risen for the first time in five years. In Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), patients with suspected HIV went undiagnosed due to test-kit stocks running out.

Stories of the devastating impact of US, British and wider European aid cuts on the fight against HIV – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa – continue to mount as 2025 comes to an end, and are set out in a series of reports released in the past week.

The Trump administration abruptly cut all overseas aid spending in January, with only piecemeal restorations to funding since then. Other countries, including the UK, have announced their own cuts. It has been estimated that external health assistance over 2025 will be between 30% and 40% lower than it was in 2023.

Winnie Byanyima, USAID’s executive director, said: “The complex ecosystem that sustains HIV services in dozens of low- and middle-income countries was shaken to its core.”

Without swift action to get services back on track, UNAids has predicted there will be 3.3m more new HIV infections by 2030 than expected. And while there are signs of recovery, including new domestic funding in some countries, access remains far from universal.

The UN agency’s report finds that services working to prevent HIV infections were particularly likely to be donor-funded and are among the hardest hit – with resources limited, treatment for existing patients has been prioritised. In Burundi, for example, the number of people receiving preventive HIV medicines fell by 64%.

A separate series of country-level reports from the British charity Frontline Aids, covering Angola, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, highlights similar issues.

The full figures will take time to collate, but in some places there are already signs that new HIV cases, or Aids-related deaths, are rising after years of heading downwards.

Many of the gains in the fight against HIV in recent years have come via the recognition that some groups of people are at higher risk of infection – known as “key populations”. They include men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, sex workers, transgender people, and prison inmates.

In each case, offering services specifically designed around those groups’ needs has borne fruit – for example, LGBTQ+ friendly walk-in clinics can mean access to care for people who are stay away from public clinics due to the stigma around HIV.

Many of those clinics and other outreach services have closed, along with swathes of community-led organisations, previously reliant on donor funding. One member of the LGBTQ+ community in Uganda, quoted in the Frontline Aids country report, said the loss of safe spaces had left them “isolated and exposed […] the mental strain is overwhelming”.

In sub-Saharan Africa, teenage girls and young women are disproportionately affected by HIV, but programmes designed specifically for them are another common casualty of the cuts.

In Kenya, activists report that people who can do so are hiding the fact they belong to a key population so as to access care in public clinics safely. They fear this will mean a loss of information on where and how the virus is spreading.

John Plastow, executive director at Frontline Aids, said: “We are already seeing progress slip backwards.”

But Plastow also saw the potential for a reset of health policies. “In several countries,” he said, “we are seeing the first signs of governments and communities working together to build more sustainable, homegrown HIV responses.”

UNAids also pointed to signs of hope, with countries including Nigeria, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa and Tanzania all pledging to increase domestic investment.

And, they said, innovations such as new long-acting injectable drugs to prevent infection were “gaining momentum”.

“We know what works – we have the science, tools and proven strategies,” said Byanyima. “What we need now is political courage: investing in communities, in prevention, in innovation and in protecting human rights as the path to end Aids.”

In Mozambique, a teenage rape victim sought care at a health clinic only to find it closed. In Zimbabwe, Aids-related deaths have risen for the first time in five years. In Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), patients with suspected HIV went undiagnosed due to test-kit stocks running out.

Stories of the devastating impact of US, British and wider European aid cuts on the fight against HIV – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa – continue to mount as 2025 comes to an end, and are set out in a series of reports released in the past week.

The Trump administration abruptly cut all overseas aid spending in January, with only piecemeal restorations to funding since then. Other countries, including the UK, have announced their own cuts. It has been estimated that external health assistance over 2025 will be between 30% and 40% lower than it was in 2023.

Winnie Byanyima, USAID’s executive director, said: “The complex ecosystem that sustains HIV services in dozens of low- and middle-income countries was shaken to its core.”

Without swift action to get services back on track, UNAids has predicted there will be 3.3m more new HIV infections by 2030 than expected. And while there are signs of recovery, including new domestic funding in some countries, access remains far from universal.

The UN agency’s report finds that services working to prevent HIV infections were particularly likely to be donor-funded and are among the hardest hit – with resources limited, treatment for existing patients has been prioritised. In Burundi, for example, the number of people receiving preventive HIV medicines fell by 64%.

A separate series of country-level reports from the British charity Frontline Aids, covering Angola, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, highlights similar issues.

The full figures will take time to collate, but in some places there are already signs that new HIV cases, or Aids-related deaths, are rising after years of heading downwards.

Many of the gains in the fight against HIV in recent years have come via the recognition that some groups of people are at higher risk of infection – known as “key populations”. They include men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, sex workers, transgender people, and prison inmates.

In each case, offering services specifically designed around those groups’ needs has borne fruit – for example, LGBTQ+ friendly walk-in clinics can mean access to care for people who are stay away from public clinics due to the stigma around HIV.

Many of those clinics and other outreach services have closed, along with swathes of community-led organisations, previously reliant on donor funding. One member of the LGBTQ+ community in Uganda, quoted in the Frontline Aids country report, said the loss of safe spaces had left them “isolated and exposed […] the mental strain is overwhelming”.

In sub-Saharan Africa, teenage girls and young women are disproportionately affected by HIV, but programmes designed specifically for them are another common casualty of the cuts.

In Kenya, activists report that people who can do so are hiding the fact they belong to a key population so as to access care in public clinics safely. They fear this will mean a loss of information on where and how the virus is spreading.

John Plastow, executive director at Frontline Aids, said: “We are already seeing progress slip backwards.”

But Plastow also saw the potential for a reset of health policies. “In several countries,” he said, “we are seeing the first signs of governments and communities working together to build more sustainable, homegrown HIV responses.”

UNAids also pointed to signs of hope, with countries including Nigeria, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa and Tanzania all pledging to increase domestic investment.

And, they said, innovations such as new long-acting injectable drugs to prevent infection were “gaining momentum”.

“We know what works – we have the science, tools and proven strategies,” said Byanyima. “What we need now is political courage: investing in communities, in prevention, in innovation and in protecting human rights as the path to end Aids.”

African leaders are pushing to have colonial-era crimes recognised, criminalised and addressed through reparations.

At a conference in the Algerian capital, Algiers, diplomats and leaders convened to advance an African Union resolution passed at a meeting earlier this year calling for justice and reparations for victims of colonialism.

Algerian foreign minister Ahmed Attaf said Algeria’s experience under French rule highlighted the need to seek compensation and reclaim stolen property.

A legal framework, he added, would ensure restitution is seen as “neither a gift nor a favour”.

“Africa is entitled to demand the official and explicit recognition of the crimes committed against its peoples during the colonial period, an indispensable first step toward addressing the consequences of that era, for which African countries and peoples continue to pay a heavy price in terms of exclusion, marginalisation and backwardness,” Attaf said.

International conventions and statutes accepted by a majority of countries have outlawed practices including slavery, torture and apartheid. The United Nations Charter prohibits the seizure of territory by force but does not explicitly reference colonialism.

That absence was central to the African Union’s February summit, where leaders discussed a proposal to develop a unified position on reparations and formally define colonisation as a crime against humanity.

The economic cost of colonialism in Africa is believed to be staggering, with some estimates in the trillions. European powers extracted natural resources often through brutal methods, amassing vast profits from gold, rubber, diamonds and other minerals, while leaving local populations impoverished.

African states have in recent years intensified demands for the return of looted artefacts still housed in European museums.

Attaf said it was no mistake that the conference was held in Algeria, a country that suffered some of the most brutal forms of French colonial rule and fought a bloody war between 1954 and 1962 to win its independence.

Its impact was far-reaching: nearly a million European settlers held greater political, economic and social privileges, even though Algeria was legally part of France and its men were conscripted during the second world war.

Hundreds of thousands of people died in the country’s revolution, during which French forces tortured detainees, disappeared suspects and devastated villages as part of a counterinsurgency strategy to maintain their grip on power.

“Our continent retains the example of Algeria’s bitter ordeal as a rare model, almost without equivalent in history, in its nature, its logic and its practices,” Attaf said.

Algeria’s experience has long informed its position on the disputed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony claimed by neighbouring Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front.

Attaf on Sunday framed it as a case of unfinished decolonisation, echoing the African Union’s formal stance even as a growing number of member states have moved to support Morocco’s claim to the territory.

He called it “Africa’s last colony” and lauded the indigenous Sahrawis’ fight “to assert their legitimate and legal right to self-determination, as confirmed – and continuously reaffirmed – by international legality and UN doctrine on decolonisation”.

Algeria has for decades pressed for colonialism to be tackled through international law, even as its leaders tread carefully to avoid inflaming tensions with France, where the war’s legacy remains politically sensitive.

French president Emmanuel Macron in 2017 described elements of the history as a crime against humanity but stopped short of issuing an official apology and implored Algerians not to dwell on past injustices.

Mohamed Arezki Ferrad, a member of Algeria’s parliament, told the Associated Press that compensation had to be more than symbolic, noting Algerian artefacts looted by France have yet to be returned. That includes Baba Merzoug, a 16th-century cannon that remains in Brest.

Earlier in November, the Guardian reported on similar calls in the Caribbean, with a delegation from the body leading that region’s slavery reparations movement preparing to visit the UK to advocate on the issue.

Caribbean governments have also been calling for recognition of the lasting legacy of colonialism and enslavement, and for reparative justice from former colonisers, including a full formal apology and forms of financial reparations.

A daughter of the former South African president Jacob Zuma has resigned as an MP, after being accused of tricking 17 South African men into fighting for Russia in Ukraine by telling them they were travelling to Russia to train as bodyguards for the Zumas’ uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.

Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, 43, the most visible and active in politics of her siblings, volunteered to resign and step back from public roles while cooperating with a police investigation and working to bring the men home, the MK chair, Nkosinathi Nhleko, said at a press conference in Durban.

Magasela Mzobe, another MK official, told reporters: “As far as we know, the resignation has got nothing to do with admission of guilt or the organisation finding her guilty,” adding that MK party had not been involved with the group of men who ended up trapped on the frontline of the war in Ukraine.

On 22 November another of Zuma’s daughters, Nkosazana Zuma-Mncube, filed a police report alleging that her sister Zuma-Sambudla and two others, Siphokazi Xuma and Blessing Khoza, had recruited the men, including eight of their family members. Zuma-Mncube did not suggest a motive for her sister’s alleged recruiting in the statement she made to police.

Zuma-Sambudla then filed an affidavit of her own, claiming she was “a victim of deception, misrepresentation and manipulation” by Khoza after the men were recruited for what she had believed was a legitimate paramilitary training course.

Zuma-Sambudla said she went to Russia herself for a month of the training, in excerpts from her statement to police published by local media: “I experienced only non-combat, controlled activities. I was never exposed to combat, never deployed.”

She claimed that she had “shared information innocently” with others, who then volunteered to go to Russia themselves. She added: “I would not, under any circumstances, knowingly expose my own family or any other person to harm.”

The South African outlet News24 said it had received videos from three of the men trapped in Ukraine, in which they alleged Zuma-Sambudla persuaded them to sign contracts in Russian that they did not understand and said she would spend a year in Russia training alongside them.

Zuma, MK party’s president, was at the press conference but did not speak. The 83-year-old has been married six times and currently has four wives and more than 20 children. Polygamy is recognised in South Africa via a law governing “customary” marriages.

Zuma was ousted as South Africa’s president in 2018, after being accused of directing a period of huge corruption known as “state capture”, allegations he has always denied. He founded MK party in December 2023, winning 14.6% of the vote in the 2024 national elections.

On Tuesday, police confirmed they were investigating, after receiving both affidavits. Zuma-Sambudla did not return calls and messages seeking comment. Khoza and Xuma could not be reached for comment.

On 6 November the office of South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said it was investigating how the men became trapped in eastern Ukraine and was working to bring them home, after receiving “distress calls for assistance”.

The men “were lured to join mercenary forces involved in the Ukraine-Russia war under the pretext of lucrative employment contracts”, it said, noting that South Africans were not permitted to assist or fight for foreign militaries without government authorisation.

Zuma-Sambudla has consistently posted her support for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, online. “We Love You Both LOUDLY And UNAPOLOGETICALLY So … I’ll Drink To That” she posted on X, then Twitter, with a photo of her father and Putin making a toast, on 22 February 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine. In May, she posted on X: “I Stand With Russia,” alongside photos of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, although it was not clear if she had taken the photos herself or when they were taken.

South Africa’s African National Congress party, which forced Zuma to stand down as president in 2018, has long been close to Russia after the Soviet Union supported its struggle against apartheid. South Africa’s government, whose foreign policy is still controlled by the ANC although it is now in a coalition, has refrained from criticising Russia for invading Ukraine. It has tried to present itself as a neutral arbiter in the search for a peace deal.

Zuma-Sambudla is on trial on charges of inciting violence in posts on X, during deadly riots that erupted in 2021 when her father was sent to jail for contempt of court. She has denied the allegations.

Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that underscores the need for urgent action to save the world’s great natural climate stabilisers.

The alarming shift, which has happened since 2010, means all of the planet’s three main rainforest regions – the South American Amazon, south-east Asia and Africa – have gone from being allies in the fight against climate breakdown to being part of the problem.

Human activity is the primary cause of the problem. Farmers are clearing more land for food production. Infrastructure projects and mining are exacerbating the loss of vegetation and global heating – caused by the burning of gas, oil and coal – thereby degrading the resilience of ecosystems.

Scientists found that between 2010 and 2017, African forests lost approximately 106bn kg of biomass per year, which is equivalent to the weight of about 106m cars. The worst affected were the tropical moist broadleaf forests in Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and parts of west Africa

The study, published on Friday in Scientific Reports, was led by researchers at the National Centre for Earth Observation at the Universities of Leicester, Sheffield and Edinburgh. Using satellite data and machine learning, they tracked more than a decade of changes in the amount of carbon stored in trees and woody vegetation.

They discovered that Africa gained carbon between 2007 and 2010, but since then widespread forest loss has tipped the balance so the continent is contributing more CO₂ into the atmosphere.

The authors said the results show that urgent action is needed to stop forest loss or the world risks losing one of its most important natural carbon buffers. They say that Brazil has launched an initiative, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which aims to mobilise more than $100bn (£76bn) for forest protection by paying countries to leave their forests untouched.

So far, however, only a handful of nations have invested a total of $6.5bn in the initiative.

Prof Heiko Balzter, a senior author and director of the Institute for Environmental Futures at the University of Leicester, said the study showed the importance of scaling up the TFFF rapidly.

“Policymakers ought to respond by putting better safeguards in place to protect the world’s tropical forests,” Balzter said.

“Four years ago, at Cop26 in Glasgow, world leaders declared their intention to end global deforestation by 2030. But progress is not being made fast enough. The new TFFF is intended to pay forested nations for keeping their trees rooted in the ground. It is a way for governments and private investors to counteract the drivers of deforestation, such as mining for minerals and metals, and agricultural land take. But more countries need to pay into it to make it work.”