The UK cut health aid to some of the world’s vulnerable countries at the same time as recruiting thousands of their nurses, in a “double whammy” for fragile health systems, new analysis has found.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which carried out the research, said Labour had a “duty to fix” aid cuts imposed by the previous government, and to work on increasing the UK’s domestic supply of nurses.

Between 2020 and 2023, direct UK aid for health-related projects in “red list” countries – those with the most severe workforce shortages – fell by nearly 63%, from £484m to £181m.

Spending on projects designed to strengthen the healthcare workforce in those countries fell by 83%, from £24m to £4m.

At the same time, the number of nurses from these countries on the UK’s national register rose sharply. There were 11,386 registered in September 2020, and 32,543 in September 2024.

The Conservative government under Boris Johnson pushed through a £4bn cut to the foreign aid budget, reducing spending from 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to 0.5%. In last October’s budget, Labour kept government spending at this reduced figure.

Prof Nicola Ranger, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: “Cuts to aid may have been the previous government’s idea, but it is now this government’s duty to fix it.

“By maintaining the aid target at a lowly 0.5% of GNI, the UK is failing to uphold its international duties, effectively worsening chronic nursing workforce shortages in some of the most under-resourced healthcare systems in the world.

“The prime minister promised ‘change’ on being elected and that must include undoing the damage done to aid budgets by restoring spending to 0.7%,” she said.

An abrupt halt to UK funding for one project in 2021 meant ambulances in Sierra Leone were left without fuel and patients could not get to hospital for emergency treatment. “There is no question that there were fatalities as a result,” said a UK health worker involved in the programme.

Ranger said: “Recruiting heavily from the same countries from which we have deprived aid is a double whammy for some of the world’s most fragile healthcare systems. But it is also a damning indictment of successive governments’ unwillingness to properly fund and grow our own domestic nursing profession.”

The 55 countries on the World Health Organization’s “red list” (formally known as the health workforce support and safeguards list), include Ghana, Nigeria, Nepal, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Somalia.

Other countries are not supposed to actively recruit from red-list countries, although staff from those countries are free to apply for vacancies elsewhere.

The RCN analysis also found the proportion of health-related spending within the UK’s total aid budget declined from 16.7% in 2020 to 7.6% in 2023.

The analysis looks only at bilateral aid – directly between two countries. Some red-list countries will also have received support from the UK through multilateral organisations such as the Global Fund and the World Health Organization.

A government spokesperson said: “The UK remains one of the most generous donors among the G7 and we are committed to restoring development spending to 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) as soon as fiscal circumstances allow.

“We are working to address the global shortage of healthcare workers through our leading multilateral health investments. UK support to the World Bank and Global Financing Facility generates further investment in the global health workforce.”

The spokesperson said a code of practice governing international recruitment of health and social-care staff ensured it was “ethical and sustainable”.

A huge cleanup operation is taking place after a fire devastated one of the world’s biggest secondhand clothes markets.

Thousands of traders’ stalls were destroyed in the blaze that started at about 10pm on 1 January and consumed large sections of Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana’s capital.

The Ghana national fire service (GNFS) deployed 13 tenders to combat the flames. Goods worth millions of Ghanaian cedi have been destroyed, the GNFS said.

“This is devastating,” said Alex King Nartey, a GNFS spokesperson. “We’ve not recorded severe casualties, but the economic loss is enormous.

“Preliminary investigations suggest faulty electrical connections might have sparked the blaze, although we are not ruling out arson,” Nartey told AFP.

As much as two-thirds of the market has been destroyed and there are estimates that 8,000 people have been affected, though this number is expected to rise.

Alhassan Fatawu owned a stall where he used bits of material from secondhand clothes to make and sell his own designs, and was notified in the early hours of Thursday morning that the market was on fire.

“The man who runs the neighbouring stall called me and said everything had burned. I started panicking,” he said. He went to see the damage for himself at about 9am.

“I found burnt stalls. There were still parts burning,” he said. “I couldn’t salvage a thing [from my stall]. Everything has gone. Now my daily bread has been cut. I used my stall at Kantamanto to sustain myself.”

Before the fire, Kantamanto was a sprawling complex of thousands of stalls crammed with clothes from brands including H&M, Levi Strauss, Tesco, Primark, New Look and more. About 30,000 people depend on the market for their livelihood.

According to the Or Foundation, which campaigns against textile waste in Ghana, 15m secondhand garments from countries in the global north such as the UK, the US and China arrive at the market every week. The Kantamanto community is responsible for recirculating 25m pieces of secondhand clothing every month through resale, reuse, repair and remanufacturing.

The market is a vibrant hub of creativity and a necessary alternative to fast fashion. The fire has left many families in distress after catastrophic losses for retailers, upcyclers and other market members, as merchandise, shops, tools and equipment have been destroyed.

Yayra Agbofah, co-founder of the Revival, a community-led organisation creating awareness, art and jobs with textile waste arriving in Ghana, lost storage space in the blaze. He was at the market on Friday morning along with hundreds of others, clearing the debris. All that remained of many stalls were blackened and charred piles of clothes and ash.

“The goal is to rebuild in a week,” he said. “People have to return to work because they don’t have anything.”

He added: “There has been no information about what the government is going to do. We have to take things into our own hands and rebuild our market.

“The traders have lost everything. A lot are in debt. This is their livelihood. There are no other alternatives. We have to find ways to get our feet back and start work. The only option is to build back and start from scratch. It’s a devastating situation.”

Twenty people are missing after falling into the sea from a tilting boat after it started to take in water in rough seas about 20 miles off the coast of Libya, according to survivors.

Carrying 27 passengers, the six-metre boat had left Zuwara in Libya at 10pm on Monday. Despite the waves, seven people managed to continue the journey on the rickety vessel before being found by an Italian police patrol boat on Tuesday night close to the southern island of Lampedusa.

It was initially believed that the vessel had capsized close to Lampedusa, and so an overnight search and rescue operation was carried out by the Italian police and coastguard in the area of sea south-west of the island.

But according to witness statements from six adult survivors reported by the Italian press, the boat started to take in water about five hours after its departure from Libya and tilted, creating panic and causing 20 passengers to fall overboard.

The witnesses, who included two people from Syria, two from Egypt and two from Sudan, said five women and three children were among those who fell overboard. They said the sea was rough and the winds strong. The seventh survivor was an eight-year-old boy from Syria. All have been taken to Porto Empedocle in Sicily.

According to the news agency Ansa, Italian authorities have ceased the search and reported the incident to their Libyan and Maltese counterparts.

In a separate incident on Monday, two people including a five-year-old child died and 17 survived after the vessel they were on broke down off the northern Tunisian coastline during an attempt to reach Europe.

According to Alarm Phone, an organisation that runs a hotline for people in distress at sea, three boats have capsized off Tunisia since Tuesday.

“So many people have needlessly died and disappeared,” the organisation wrote on X. “What a horrible way to start the new year. Our condolences to the relatives and friends of the dead.”

The dance world is mourning the internationally acclaimed South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo, who died in hospital at the weekend aged 39.

Masilo died unexpectedly on Sunday after a brief illness, a spokesperson for her family said in a statement.

Born in Soweto, she was described as a sprite-like, energetic dancer and a fearless rule-breaker, who brought African dance motifs to classic European roles in a career that spanned two decades.

“Deeply respectful of European and contemporary music traditions, but unafraid to go bare on stage and voice her own opinions, she effectively changed the shape and appearance of contemporary dance in South Africa,” said the spokesperson, Bridget van Oerle.

In September, Masilo received the Positano Léonide Massine lifetime achievement award for classic and contemporary dance, when she was praised as “powerful and topical”.

Her revisited versions of the great classics of romantic ballet drew on African dance to speak of the society in which she lived and of tolerance across borders, the award announcement said.

“A brilliant light has been extinguished,” the Joburg Ballet company said, praising Masilo’s “creative force as a choreographer and her wisdom as a human being”.

“Her groundbreaking work reshaped the world of contemporary dance, and her spirit will continue to inspire generations of artists and audiences,” the University of Johannesburg’s arts and culture department said.

The UK-based Dance Consortium, which toured with Masilo in Britain twice, called her death a “tragic loss to the dance world”.

“Her fresh perspective, extraordinary presence and stunning creations wowed and inspired audiences and artists across the UK and around the world,” it said.

Masilo was best known for her reinvention of the great ballet classics such as Swan Lake and Giselle, said Lliane Loots, the artistic director at the JOMBA! dance centre at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

She used her “remarkable skill as a ballet dancer” to meld this European dance form “with the rhythms and intentions of her own histories of African dance and of being South African”, Loots said.

In 2016, Masilo’s Swan Lake was nominated for a New York Bessie award and the following year her Giselle won best performance at the Italian Danza and Danza awards, the family statement said.

In 2018, she won the Netherlands’ Prince Claus “next generation” award, where she was described as an “extraordinary role model for young people and girls”.

The Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof urged Tony Blair not to appoint an African co-chair to the UK-led organisation working to overhaul international aid to the continent because he thought African leadership was “very weak” on the issue, newly released government documents suggest.

The singer was “scathing about the ability and worthiness of virtually all African leaders” before the establishment in 2004 of Blair’s Commission for Africa, which would produce a report, Our Common Interest, and prompt a landmark pledge by rich nations to boost aid and write off debt.

Geldof was instrumental in persuading the then prime minister to set up a “Brandt II” report, similar to the 1980 Brandt report on international economic development, which would lead to a “Marshall plan” for Africa, a reference to the US plan to rebuild Europe after the second world war. It would coincide with the UK’s presidency of the G8 nations group and the 20th anniversary of Live Aid.

But behind the scenes, Geldof and the government had different ideas on how it should be set up, official papers released to the National Archives show.

Geldof stressed in one letter to the prime minister that Blair’s personal leadership was vital if it was to succeed. “I do think this needs to be a direct commission from you personally – your vision, your authority, your weight,” he wrote.

He also called for speed so it could report back in time for the G8 summit that Blair was hosting at Gleneagles in July 2005. “I know I’m pushy, and I know you’re up to your neck, but something short of the normal seven-week delay response would be welcome (do you use Royal Mail?). Seriously though, this must be implemented almost immediately,” Geldof wrote.

A No 10 letter from October 2003, reporting on a telephone conversation between Blair and Geldof, said: “The PM spoke with Bob Geldof today. Geldof argued that unless we found a way to allow Africans to make livelihoods at home they would come to our shores, resulting in massive social upheaval. African leadership had been very weak.”

Other Downing Street officials urged caution. One said they could face “opprobrium” from Geldof and his fellow Live Aid campaigner Bono if they were unable to deliver on the plan.

Liz Lloyd, a senior adviser on international development, expressed concern over Geldof’s desire that the commission, while being chaired by Blair, should also be independent, and she stressed the government must have oversight.

“If this document is going to have your name and be sold by you, [Geldof] must accept that we have the final editing role,” she wrote to Blair.

The fact Geldof was opposed to a chair from Africa was particularly “tricky”, she added. “He is scathing about the ability and worthiness of virtually all African leaders and sees the audience as primarily the US,” she noted.

“He therefore does not want an African co-chair, content to ride with your name to give it credibility.”

She continued that they would need “prominent African involvement” and suggested Blair “talk carefully” to the then South African president, Thabo Mbeki, to secure his support.

The ensuing pledge at Gleneagles to double aid and extend debt relief was hailed by Geldof as “mission accomplished”, although some anti-poverty campaigners complained that he had got too close to the government and that it did not go far enough.

Tony Blair’s government discussed diverting £2m earmarked to prevent conflict in Africa in order to fund a controversial pilot scheme to process and house asylum-seekers in Tanzania, newly released government files show.

Under the scheme, Britain would have offered Tanzania an extra £4m in aid if it opened an asylum camp to house people claiming to be Somalian refugees while their applications to live in Britain were assessed.

Hilary Benn, the then international development secretary, wrote to the then home secretary, David Blunkett, in 2004 saying the migration partnership with Tanzania was “off the ground”, files released to the National Archives in Kew, west London, show.

“As the quickest way forward, therefore, I would propose a PES transfer of £2 million from the Africa Conflict Prevention Pool to the Home Office budget, on the understanding that you – with help, I hope, from Jack Straw – will find the resources needed to fill the remaining shortfall,” Benn wrote in January 2004.

Straw, the then foreign secretary, responded, writing to Blunkett in February 2004 that he had “some reservations” about using ACPP funding in this way, but was willing to agree a one-off transfer.

The then armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, however, wrote to Benn to say that while he agreed that the removal of refused asylum seekers should be addressed, he did not “consider it appropriate” to draw on the ACPP fund.

Ingram wrote: “In the medium and longer terms improving stability in Africa is likely to be one of the more sustainable means of reducing the flow of economic and other migrants; that is what the ACPP exists to achieve. Perhaps there are other more appropriate funding sources we should look at in this case.”

The 2004 asylum camp scheme – put forward at a time when Blair sought to persuade voters that his government still controlled Britain’s borders – was dropped in the face of opposition in Tanzania and criticism from the EU, with some German officials likening the proposals to concentration camps.

More than 60 people have died after a road accident in southern Ethiopia, the local health authority said on Sunday.

Sidama state is in the south of Ethiopia, about 300km south of the capital Addis Ababa.

The Sidama regional health bureau said on Facebook that “a car accident has claimed the lives of 66 people so far”, without giving further details.

The incident occurred at Gelana bridge in Bona Zuria Woreda, according to the bureau.

“Four injured passengers are receiving medical treatment at the Bona general hospital,” it added.

Blurred images shared by the health bureau showed a mass of people surrounding a vehicle, partially submerged in water, with many seemingly attempting to help pull it from the waters.

Other images shared by the bureau appeared to show bodies covered in blue tarpaulin, lying on the ground.

The bureau expressed its condolences to the victims of the crash, and said more information would be made available when it received it.

At the top of the Ado-Awaye hills lies a lake suspended 433 metres above sea level. Local people say the lake is named Iyake (Yoruba for “crying woman”) after a weeping, barren woman who fell in the water hundreds of years ago, conferring on it powers of fertility.

This belief in the divine is evident in the foothills, where a huge boulder is emblazoned with the words, written in golden letters: “Here we come: African Jerusalem.”

Ado-Awaye, a tourist site as sleepy as the community it shares a name with in the south-western Nigerian state of Ogun, gets a modest 3,000 or so visitors annually. Most of these are religious worshippers who climb the 369-step path to the top, where they camp or visit the lake, which is reportedly one of only two natural suspended lakes in the world. Others are hikers or visitors to an annual festival held every November.

But as Nigeria experiences its worst cost of living crisis in decades, tourism is on the back burner. Even Detty December, the country’s month-long potpourri of festivities, has been affected.

And in Ado-Awaye, divine pilgrimages have slowed down. “[Just] over 2,400 came this year because of current economic challenges,” said Niyi Okunade, a prince of the community who organises site tours.

On paper, Nigeria is a tourist haven. In the north, there is the colourful Kano Durbar festival, the sand dunes of Yobe and the country’s most popular game reserve in Bauchi. In the Middle Belt, teas, strawberries and apples grow in towns around the Mambilla and Jos plateaus, with some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet.

Down south, there are waterfalls, museums, colonial-era relics and carnivals, as well as dozens of beaches along the seven states that border the Gulf of Guinea where small resorts are tucked away in endless tranquillity. There are also spots where visitors can enjoy an array of street food and those seeking the coldest of drinks can request “mortuary standard” beers. On the streets, huge speakers keep the mood electric, blasting Afrobeats and other genres from Owerri bongo to Fuji music.

Billionaires reportedly go whale-watching on a couple of small islands outside Lagos that connect to the Atlantic. The River Osun still draws thousands every year, despite record levels of pollution from gold mining.

This year, Nigeria’s multitude of stars were joined by foreign celebrities from Chloe Bailey and Saweetie to Tyla and Gunna in Lagos for Detty December. The multipurpose 12,000-seater Lagos Arena is being built to allow events to be hosted all year round.

But according to the tourism ministry, there were only 1.2 million visitors to Nigeria in 2023, 20% more than in the preceding year. The figure was on par with Ghana (1.1 million) but pales in comparison to those of South Africa (8.48 million) and Kenya (1.95 million).

Ikemesit Effiong, head of research at Lagos-based geopolitical research consultancy SBM Intelligence, blames an infrastructure deficit and an undercurrent of insecurity in a few areas choking tourism.

“[There is] a dearth of world-class hotels, especially in secondary and tertiary cities … a siloed hospitality culture which doesn’t integrate events, logistics and catering into a coherent whole – for example with travel packages – and a lack of customer awareness of promising locations, festivals and even the country’s tourism potential,” he said.

“Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and even Ghana do a much better job of selling their countries domestically and overseas than Nigeria.”

Okunade says that Ado-Awaye is lacking “modern hotel accommodation for the visiting tourists” as well as a lift or cable car system to elevate the site to world-class standards. “Government should invest more,” he believes.

In the 60s and 70s, Nigeria attracted medical tourists from across the world but many of its hospitals are now shadows of their former selves.

In the absence of tourists, rampaging bandits and terrorists have set up bases in remote areas; the feared Sambisa forest, where Boko Haram reportedly kept the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls, was an abandoned game reserve.

The Obudu mountaintop cattle ranch, a project in the biodiversity-rich Cross River state, and its international marathon have lost their shine since the tourism-loving, saxophone-playing governor who initiated them left office. The annual Calabar Carnival, where the singer Akon dramatically rolled about in a white balloon while headlining in 2012, has declined in status too. Many museums are semi-open, with barely any upgrades in decades.

Nigeria has a wide network of underused airports and airfields and an improving rail system. But on one night this month, every conveyor belt at the new Lagos international airport terminal went out of service, leaving passengers waiting for their luggage for more than two hours.

Henry Erikowa, founder of Falcorp Mangrove Park, an ecotourism resort in the former oil capital of Warri, said young people were not as interested in preserving their heritage, or working in tourism, as in the past and should be incentivised to do so.

“They are all interested in oil money now,” said Erikowa, who has been looking for trainee zookeepers for years.

In 2009, one of Nigeria’s most distinguished public servants launched Good People, Great Nation, a rebranding campaign for Nigeria’s image abroad. But Dora Akunyili, the information minister who made her name working to combat counterfeit medicines, failed to get a buy-in from the government she served or from the wider population.

Some say a similar but better-run effort, backed by the government at the highest levels, is needed to drive the change required to make Nigeria a true tourism powerhouse.

“You have to create a culture of serving people, not just have people in service roles … A lot of that work has to be top-down driven, with policymakers at the federal and state levels,” said Effiong. “Many potential Nigerian tourist hotspots are left on their own to figure this out and it makes for a hodge-podge of experiences.”

The UN has authorised a new African peacekeeping mission to continue its fight against the al-Qaida-affiliated group al-Shabaab in Somalia, but there are doubts about whether troops from neighbouring Ethiopia will remain part of the deployment.

The UN security council adopted a resolution on Friday allowing the deployment of up to 12,626 personnel to support the Somali government’s nearly two decades-long fight against the al-Shabaab insurgents.

The existing peacekeeping force, known as the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (Atmis), whose mandate ends at the end of this year, will be replaced by the leaner African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (Aussom).

The two peacekeeping forces were preceded by the African Union Mission In Somalia (Amisom) which was the largest, longest running and deadliest such mission in history.

Al-Shabaab, a jihadist organisation with roots in Ethiopia’s 2006 invasion of Somalia, carries out regular deadly attacks across the country and in neighbouring Kenya. In August, almost 40 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded when it attacked a beach in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

James Kariuki, the UK’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, welcomed the resolution, telling the council that it “robustly reinforces” support for Somalia in its fight against al-Shabaab. “It authorises Aussom to support Somalia in its fight against al-Shabaab, strengthen Somalia’s stabilisation efforts, and enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance,” he said.

The French representative at the council also hailed the adoption of the resolution as an “important step forward” and a “new stage in the support for Somalia’s efforts to combat the al-Shabaab group”.

It wasn’t clear if Ethiopia, which has been a major contributor to the two past iterations of the peacekeeping forces, would be allowed to continue to play a role. Somalia and Ethiopia have been embroiled in a year-long dispute over a sea access deal that landlocked Ethiopia reached with the separatist northern Somaliland region – which Somaliland officials say would lead to Ethiopia becoming the first country to recognise the region’s statehood.

The agreement between Somaliland and Ethiopia has been strongly opposed by Somali officials, who have called it an attempt to “annex” a portion of their territory. The deal would reportedly grant Ethiopia a portion of Somaliland’s coast for potential naval use.

Somalia first hinted in the summer that it might remove Ethiopia from a long-running African Union peacekeeping mission against al-Shabaab in parts of southern and central Somalia, and replace its contingent with troops from other countries, including Egypt, with which Ethiopia has its own disputes over a dam it has constructed along the Nile.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, brokered an agreement between the feuding neighbours last month labelled the Ankara declaration, which was meant to address Ethiopia’s sea access concerns. At that time, Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said Ethiopia would be permitted to keep its troops in the peacekeeping mission.

Mohamed Rabi Yusuf, the Somalia representative to the UN, said the Somali government had carried out a “comprehensive review of its security arrangements” and had obtained commitments from other countries willing to commit troops to Somalia. “This commitment addresses any security vacuum created by Ethiopia while sustaining progress in the fight against al-Shabaab,” Yusuf said.

The Ethiopian delegate, who was present at the UN security council meeting, said his country was “ready to continue its role in the post Atmis mission”, adding that “extra-regional actors”, a likely reference to Egypt, should abandon their “reckless pursuit”.

Ayub Ismail Yusuf, a Somali MP and member of the Somali parliament’s foreign affairs committee, called on the Somali government to exclude Ethiopia from the peacekeeping force. “No nation can trust another where their sovereignty was threatened by them,” he posted on X.

However, in a late post on X, Somalia’s national security advisor, Hussein Sheikh-Ali, suggested a decision had not yet been reached on whether Ethiopian troops would be permitted to remain, but added: “The spirit of the Ankara declaration remains strong and alive.”

Earlier this week, the Somali government claimed that Ethiopian troops attacked members of its armed forces in the southern Jubbaland state, causing casualties and injuries. Ethiopia denied the allegation, attributing it to unnamed “third-party” actors, according to a statement.

International trade in rhino horns should be legalised, a leading wildlife expert has urged.

Writing in the research journal Science, Martin Wikelski argues only carefully monitored, legitimate transactions in horns can save the world’s remaining species of rhinoceros.

“A few years ago, I was very much against this idea but now looking at the grim situation we are in I believe we have to change our attitude to the issue of trade in rhino horn,” said Wikelski, of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Germany.

“International crime syndicates have overcome every countermeasure that conservationists have mounted to defend rhinos from poachers. The result has been a drastic drop in numbers of animals. By legalising trade in rhino horn we can take back control of the market and halt the loss.”

Wikelski’s idea would be to remove the horn and allow a new one to grow while selling the horn to make money. This could be used to fund protection for the rhino. At present, removed horn is stored in secure vaults.

However, the proposal to use stocks to create a legitimate trade in rhino horn has triggered worried responses from many conservationists, who reject the idea that such a scheme would save the rhino from the attention of poachers. Current demand for illegal rhino horn already far exceeds the potential legal supply and is projected to grow as wealth increases in consumer countries, they argue.

“In addition, a legal rhino horn market could increase demand, provide opportunities for money laundering, and complicate law enforcement’s ability to distinguish legal sources from illegal sources,” Rascha Nuijten, director of Future For Nature Foundation, wrote in a response to Wikelski’s arguments that was also published in Science.

Rhino horn is made of keratin, a protein from which hair and fingernails are made and it is said to have curative properties according to traditional Chinese medicine, despite there being no scientific evidence to support such claims.

“It was traditionally prescribed in Asian medicine in the belief that it can reduce heat and toxins from the body,” said Jo Shaw, chief executive officer of Save the Rhino International. “More recently, demand has been more status driven and rhino horn is now embedded in serious organised, transnational crime networks.”

The impact of this criminal interest has been devastating. At the beginning of the 20th century, half a million rhinos roamed Africa and Asia. By 1970, numbers had dropped to 70,000, and today there are about 27,000 left on the planet, made up of five species: two from Africa, the black and the white rhino, and three in Asia; the Javan, Sumatran and the greater one-horned rhino.

There are more than 6,000 black rhinos in Africa and more than 17,000 white, while there are an estimated 4,000 one-horned rhinos in India and Nepal. By contrast, it is thought there are fewer than 70 Javan rhinos and between 34 and 47 Sumatrans, which are both found only in Indonesia. The latter two species, along with black rhinos, are rated as being critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature .

Today, about half of the world’s white rhino population is privately managed. However, since the late 2000s, demand for white rhino horn and large-scale poaching activities have increased dramatically. “As a result these estate owners who act as guardians for the species are giving up their custodianship because of the costs of protecting them against determined poachers and because of threats to their own personal safety,” Wikelski told the Observer last week.

He added that at state rhino sanctuaries, such as the Kruger national park in South Africa, authorities have decided to continue to dehorn rhinos to deter poaching, with limited success. Deaths continue to be high and have destroyed rhinos’ social systems, changing their behaviour. “The answer is to create a controllable, traceable trade,” Wikelski said.

But this claim was questioned by Shaw. “Numbers of white rhinos have actually increased last year and they are not the ones that are threatened with extinction. It is the black, Java and Sumatran rhino that we ​really have to worry about and there is no certainty that legalising trade in white rhino horn will benefit their conservation.”

Shaw said that rather than take polarising positions promoting or opposing legalisation of international trade, it would be more helpful to tease out the practicalities of exactly how such a trade could be assured to benefit all five species of rhinos. “We would need to see the necessary level of detail and control to provide confidence that such a gamble wouldn’t end up doing more harm than good.”

Nearly one in five of the world’s children live in areas affected by conflicts, with more than 473 million children suffering from the worst levels of violence since the second world war, according to figures published by the UN.

The UN humanitarian aid organisation for children, Unicef, said on Saturday that the percentage of children living in conflict zones around the world has doubled from about 10% in the 1990s to almost 19%, and warned that this dramatic increase in harm to children should not become the “new normal”.

With more conflicts being waged around the world than at any time since 1945, Unicef said that children were increasingly falling victim. Citing its latest available data, from 2023, the UN verified a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children, the highest figures since the security council mandated monitoring of the impact of war on the world’s children nearly 20 years ago.

The death toll after nearly 15 months of Israel’s war in Gaza is estimated at more than 45,000 and out of the cases it has verified, the UN said 44% were children.

In Ukraine, the UN said it had verified more child casualties during the first nine months of 2024 than during all of 2023, and predicted there would be a further increase in 2025.

“By almost every measure, 2024 has been one of the worst years on record for children in conflict in Unicef’s history – both in terms of the number of children affected and the level of impact on their lives,” Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said.

“A child growing up in a conflict zone is far more likely to be out of school, malnourished, or forced from their home – too often repeatedly – compared with a child living in places of peace,” Russell added. “This must not be the new normal. We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world’s unchecked wars.”

Unicef drew attention in particular to the plight of women and girls, amid widespread reports of rape and sexual violence in conflicts. It said that in Haiti there had been a 1,000% increase in the number of reported incidents of sexual violence against children over the course of 2024 alone.

Unicef also pointed out that children were especially affected by malnutrition in times of war, a particularly lethal threat in Sudan and Gaza. More than half a million people in five conflict-affected countries are in famine.

Conflict also seriously affects children’s access to healthcare and education. Forty per cent of unvaccinated or undervaccinated children live in countries wholly or partly affected by conflict, making them far more vulnerable to outbreaks of diseases such as measles and polio. Polio was detected in Gaza in July, the first time the virus had appeared there for a quarter of a century. A UN-led vaccination campaign, enabled by a series of temporary and partial ceasefires, managed to reach more than 90% of the child population.

Unicef reported that more than 52 million children in conflict-affected countries were deprived of education, saying most children across the Gaza Strip, and a significant proportion of children in Sudan, had missed out on more than a year of school. In other countries in conflict, including Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syria, schools had been damaged, destroyed or repurposed, leaving millions of children without access to learning.

“The impact on children’s mental health is also huge,” Unicef said. A study backed by the charity War Child earlier this month reported that 96% of children in Gaza felt that their death was imminent and almost half wanted to die as a result of the trauma they had been through.

“Children in war zones face a daily struggle for survival that deprives them of a childhood,” Russell said. “Their schools are bombed, homes destroyed, and families torn apart. They lose not only their safety and access to basic life-sustaining necessities, but also their chance to play, to learn, and to simply be children. The world is failing these children. As we look towards 2025, we must do more to turn the tide and save and improve the lives of children.”

An aid convoy has reached a besieged area of Khartoum for the first time since Sudan’s civil war broke out in April 2023, bringing food and medicines in a country where half of the people are at risk of starvation.

The 28 trucks arrived in southern Khartoum on 25 December, according to the World Food Programme (WFP), which provided 22 trucks loaded with 750 tonnes of food.

Unicef sent five trucks with medicines and malnutrition kits for children, while Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) contributed one truck of medical supplies, according to the Khartoum State Emergency Response Room (ERR), a grassroots aid group that is helping to coordinate the distribution.

Unicef Sudan said in a post on X: “Urgent health and nutrition needs of 200,000 children and families in conflict-torn areas in Khartoum can now be met in primary healthcare sites with ready-to-use therapeutic food; supplies for treating common childhood illnesses, cholera, malaria; and cholera and midwifery kits.”

Sudan’s armed forces have been fighting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia since April 2023, when a power struggle between the two factions of the military regime broke out into open conflict.

Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes, which they deny. Several rounds of attempted negotiations have so far failed to end the fighting.

More than 12 million people have been displaced by the war, while tens of thousands have been killed. Five areas of the country are suffering from famine, while almost half of Sudan’s 50 million population have so little to eat that their lives are at risk.

The aid convoy reaching Jebel Aulia, south of Khartoum, and the Al Bashayer hospital in the city was cause for hope for some humanitarian workers.

Duaa Tariq, who works with the ERR, told the BBC: “There were tears, tears of laughter and joy, and tears of a lot of effort and exhaustion from arranging this. It was quite a moment for everyone.”

It took six months to negotiate the convoy with the RSF and Sudan’s military, Tariq said, adding that she hoped there would be more to come: “It was such an emotional rollercoaster.”

Others cautioned that Sudan’s needs far outstripped what one convoy could provide.

Claire San Filippo, the MSF emergency coordinator for Sudan, said: “You have staggering needs on the one hand. And, on the other hand, you have an underwhelming humanitarian response and massive obstacles [put in place] by the warring parties.

“Since the beginning of the conflict, what we’ve seen is a real pattern by the warring parties to deliberately block, divert or restrict access to life-saving aid. This is absolutely wonderful that there was a convoy, but many are more needed.”

On 18 December, RSF fighters stormed into the Al Bashayer hospital, firing weapons in the emergency ward, according to MSF. No one was injured or killed, but the incursion followed the killing by armed fighters of a patient receiving treatment on 11 November.

Food distribution to an estimated 78,000 people will start on 29 December, a spokesperson for WFP said, noting that this was the first time since the start of the conflict that Mayo and Alingaz, in the Jebel Aulia area, had received food aid.

“Both Mayo and Alingaz are ‘risk of famine’ areas. Jebel Aulia has endured intense fighting through the conflict,” the spokesperson said. “WFP has been tirelessly working to gain access to all parts of Khartoum, taking advantage of brief lulls in fighting to deliver food aid while also supporting the community-run Emergency Response Rooms to deliver daily hot meals.”

The London-listed mining company Gemfields said it had temporarily halted its ruby mining operation in Mozambique after groups “took advantage” of political unrest to set fire and attempt to invade its site, resulting in two fatalities.

Gemfields, one of the world’s largest miners of coloured gemstones, said that more than 200 people associated with illegal ruby mining attempted to invade the residential village built by the company next to its Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) operation in northern Mozambique on Christmas Eve.

The company, which is incorporated in Guernsey and is listed on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges, said that the groups were trying to take advantage of the widespread civil unrest after the controversial and disputed recent national election.

Gemfields said in a statement on Friday that looters set fire to community buildings built by MRM and that security forces, made up of the Mozambican police and the military, protected the residential village in a “staged escalation of force” that resulted in two individuals being shot and killed.

On the same day, a vocational training centre built by MRM, and operated by Mozambique’s Institute for Vocational Training and Labor Studies, in the nearby village of Wikupuri was looted and damaged.

The unrest resulted in Gemfields temporarily relocating some of its more than 500 employees, halting its operation since Christmas Eve, but it began a phased return of staff on Thursday.

“Given the company’s priority remains the safety and security of its personnel, a number of people were temporarily relocated to off-site locations given the increased risk profile,” Gemfields said. “MRM maintained a sizeable presence on site of more than 500 persons across employees, contractors and security components. While MRM’s operations were halted from 24 December, MRM intends to return to normal operations before the end of the year. The company continues to closely monitor the evolving situation and will provide further updates as necessary.”

On Monday, Mozambique’s top court confirmed the victory of the ruling party, Frelimo in the October election, which caused widespread protests by groups claiming the vote was rigged.

The Constitutional Council has the final say over the electoral process.

At least 130 people have been killed in clashes with police, according to the civil society monitoring group Plataforma Decide.

The Frelimo party has governed the southern African country since 1975.

Kenmare Resources, which operates a titanium mine in northern Mozambique, has said that there have been no material incidents at its operations and no damage to its facilities.

Gemfields owns expansive mining operations including Kagem in Zambia, which produces almost a quarter of the world’s emeralds, as well as the luxury jeweller Fabergé, known for its lavish Easter eggs. In the past, Gemfields has used stars such as the Hollywood actor Mila Kunis as the face of the company.

The London-listed mining company Gemfields said it had temporarily halted its ruby mining operation in Mozambique after groups “took advantage” of political unrest to set fire and attempt to invade its site, resulting in two fatalities.

Gemfields, one of the world’s largest miners of coloured gemstones, said that more than 200 people associated with illegal ruby mining attempted to invade the residential village built by the company next to its Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) operation in northern Mozambique on Christmas Eve.

The company, which is incorporated in Guernsey and is listed on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges, said that the groups were trying to take advantage of the widespread civil unrest after the controversial and disputed recent national election.

Gemfields said in a statement on Friday that looters set fire to community buildings built by MRM and that security forces, made up of the Mozambican police and the military, protected the residential village in a “staged escalation of force” that resulted in two individuals being shot and killed.

On the same day, a vocational training centre built by MRM, and operated by Mozambique’s Institute for Vocational Training and Labor Studies, in the nearby village of Wikupuri was looted and damaged.

The unrest resulted in Gemfields temporarily relocating some of its more than 500 employees, halting its operation since Christmas Eve, but it began a phased return of staff on Thursday.

“Given the company’s priority remains the safety and security of its personnel, a number of people were temporarily relocated to off-site locations given the increased risk profile,” Gemfields said. “MRM maintained a sizeable presence on site of more than 500 persons across employees, contractors and security components. While MRM’s operations were halted from 24 December, MRM intends to return to normal operations before the end of the year. The company continues to closely monitor the evolving situation and will provide further updates as necessary.”

On Monday, Mozambique’s top court confirmed the victory of the ruling party, Frelimo in the October election, which caused widespread protests by groups claiming the vote was rigged.

The Constitutional Council has the final say over the electoral process.

At least 130 people have been killed in clashes with police, according to the civil society monitoring group Plataforma Decide.

The Frelimo party has governed the southern African country since 1975.

Kenmare Resources, which operates a titanium mine in northern Mozambique, has said that there have been no material incidents at its operations and no damage to its facilities.

Gemfields owns expansive mining operations including Kagem in Zambia, which produces almost a quarter of the world’s emeralds, as well as the luxury jeweller Fabergé, known for its lavish Easter eggs. In the past, Gemfields has used stars such as the Hollywood actor Mila Kunis as the face of the company.

At least 6,000 inmates escaped from a high-security prison in Mozambique’s capital Maputo on Christmas Day after a rebellion, the chief of police has said, as widespread post-election riots and violence continue to engulf the country.

The police general commander, Bernardino Rafael, said 33 prisoners had died and 15 others were injured during a confrontation with the security forces.

The prisoners fled during violent protests in which police cars, stations and general public infrastructure were destroyed after Mozambique’s constitutional council confirmed the ruling Frelimo party as the winner of the 9 October elections.

The escape from Maputo’s central prison, located 14km south-west of the city, started about midday on Wednesday after “agitation” by a “group of subversive protesters”, Rafael said. He said prisoners at the facility had snatched weapons from prison officers and began freeing other detainees.

Rafael said: “A curious fact is that in that prison we had 29 convicted terrorists, who they released. We are worried, as a country, as Mozambicans, as members of the defence and security forces.

“They[protesters] were making noise demanding that they be able to remove the prisoners who are there serving their sentences”, said Rafael, adding that the protests led to the collapse of a wall, allowing the prisoners to flee.

He called for the voluntary surrender of the escaped prisoners and for the population to be informed about the fugitives.

Videos circulating on social media showed the moment inmates left the prison, while other recordings revealed the captures made by military personnel and prison guards. Many prisoners tried to hide in homes, but some were unsuccessful and were detained.

In an amateur video, one prisoner, still with handcuffs on his right wrist, said he had been in the disciplinary section of the maximum security prison and had been released by other inmates.

Dozens of people have been killed in a prison riot in Mozambique on Christmas Day, authorities have said.

The riot, reportedly at the maximum security prison in the capital Maputo, left 33 people dead and 15 injured, according to police general commander Bernardino Rafael.

About 1,534 people escaped from the prison in the incident but 150 of them have now been recaptured, he added.

Mozambique is experiencing escalating civil unrest linked to October’s disputed election, which extended long-ruling party Frelimo’s stay in power. Opposition groups and their supporters claim the vote was rigged.

While Rafael blamed protests outside the prison for encouraging the riot, justice minister Helena Kida told local private broadcaster Miramar TV that the unrest was started inside the prison and had nothing to do with protests outside.

“The confrontations after that resulted in 33 deaths and 15 injured in the vicinity of the jail.” Rafael told a media briefing.

The identities of those killed and injured were unclear.

Mozambique’s interior minister said on Tuesday that at least 21 people were killed in unrest after the country’s top court on Monday confirmed Frelimo’s victory.

Mauritius is holding out over a deal to gain control of the Chagos Islands from the UK, leaving ministers less than a month to rescue the agreement.

The government in Mauritius, which took office last month, has made clear it is dissatisfied with the terms negotiated by the previous administration. Over the weekend the deputy prime minister accused the British government of “nitpicking about the compensation”.

Senior US and UK officials are now scrambling to salvage the deal and ratify it before Donald Trump, whose allies have been highly critical of the planned handover, takes office on 20 January.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, urged Navin Ramgoolam, the prime minister of Mauritius, to finalise the treaty over the phone on Monday.

Ramgoolam told a meeting of Mauritian MPs after his call with Blinken: “I made him understand that we do not agree with certain things contained in the agreement concluded on 3 October by the former Mauritian prime minister and informed him that we have made a counter-proposal which will be transmitted to him.”

After decades of negotiations, Britain agreed to cede sovereignty over the islands to the government of Mauritius in October, on condition that a UK-US military base could continue operating on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

Since taking office, Ramgoolam has sought to reopen negotiations and is reportedly asking the UK to pay more for its 99-year lease of Diego Garcia.

Paul Bérenger, Mauritian deputy prime minister, told a meeting in his constituency on Sunday that it came down to money. “There are certain things that we cannot accept if we are true patriots,” Berenger said.

“They are nitpicking about the compensation to be granted to Mauritius when for 60 years, they have illegally used our Chagos and our Diego Garcia. We will continue to negotiate.”

Jonathan Powell, the UK’s national security adviser, travelled to Port Louis and to Washington DC in recent weeks in an effort to get the deal signed before Trump’s inauguration.

Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius regained independence in the 1960s. In doing so, it evicted thousands of Chagossians who have since mounted a series of legal claims for compensation in British courts.

Diego Garcia has been home to a joint US-UK military base since the 1970s, which has played a key strategic role as a hub for long-range bombers and ships, notably during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A Russian cargo ship has sunk in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria after an explosion in its engine room, the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Two crew members on the Ursa Major are missing, while the other 14 have been rescued and brought to Spain, the ministry said in a statement.

LSEG ship tracking data shows the vessel departed from the Russian port of St Petersburg on 11 December and was last seen sending a signal at 2204 GMT on Monday between Algeria and Spain.

On leaving St Petersburg it had indicated that its next port of call was the Russian port of Vladivostok, not the Syrian port of Tartous which it has called at previously.

The operator and owner is a company called SK-Yug, part of Oboronlogistics, according to LSEG data. Oboronlogistics and SK-Yug declined to comment on the ship’s sinking.

Oboronlogistics said in a statement on 20 December that the ship was carrying specialised port cranes due to be installed at Vladivostok as well as parts for new ice-breakers.

The United Arab Emirates has become the largest backer of new business projects in Africa, raising hopes of a rush of much-needed money for green energy, but also concerns that the investments could compromise the rights of workers and environmental protections.

Between 2019 and 2023, Emirati companies announced $110bn (£88bn) of projects, $72bn of them in renewable energy, according to FT Locations, a data company owned by the Financial Times.

The pledges were more than double the value of those made by companies from the UK, France or China, which pulled back from big-ticket infrastructure investment projects in Africa after many failed to deliver expected returns. African leaders were also disappointed with climate finance pledges by western governments. At the Cop29 climate conference, for example, wealthy countries promised $300bn annually, whereas developing countries had demanded $1.3 tn.

Although African leaders have welcomed the increased interest from the Emiratis, some activists and analysts have expressed fears that the UAE’s poor record on labour rights for migrant workers, continued support for hydrocarbons and failure to address environmental issues will characterise its investments in Africa.

“African countries are in dire need of this money [for] their own energy transitions. And they plug huge holes, the Emirati investors, that the west failed to,” said Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow at the Chatham House thinktank. “But at the same time they come in with less attention to labour rights, to environmental standards.”

The UAE has long been a political player in north Africa and the Horn of Africa, where it has been accused of fuelling conflicts in Libya and Sudan. Now, its leadership is trying to diversify its economy away from oil and gas, including to green energy and “critical minerals” such as copper that are needed for electric cars and batteries.

Dubai’s port and airline companies were early movers to Africa. Dubai’s Emirates airline has flights to 20 African countries. DP World, controlled by Dubai’s royal family, has been present in the region since 2006. It manages six ports, with plans to build two more. Abu Dhabi Ports has managed Kamsar port in Guinea since 2013, and recently won concessions in Egypt, the Republic of Congo and Angola.

“Angola is, at the moment, the only country where both DP World and Abu Dhabi Ports have a presence,” said Maddalena Procopio, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She said the UAE was not shifting away from east Africa. “This has to do with a growing interest from the UAE in expanding connectivity towards the Americas, in particular Latin America.”

UAE companies also have investments in agriculture and telecoms. Since 2022, the Dubai royal Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook al-Maktoum has struck deals to sell carbon credits from forests covering a fifth of Zimbabwe, 10% of Liberia, 10% of Zambia and 8% of Tanzania.

Emirati investments have also shaken up the mining industry. International Resource Holdings, part of a conglomerate controlled by the Abu Dhabi national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, paid $1.1bn to Zambia’s state mining company, ZCCM, for a 51% stake in Mopani Copper Mines.

The deal was a surprise to most observers. ZCCM took over the debt-laden mine from Glencore in 2021 and had been searching for a new investor. Throughout 2023, the shortlist was widely reported to be down to two companies: China’s Zijin Mining and South Africa’s Sibanye Stillwater.

That was until IRH was unveiled as the preferred bidder. The company of Sheikh Tahnoon – often labelled the second most-powerful Emirati after Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, – had no track record. But Zambian officials and advisers said IRH had hired world-class mining expertise and that its pledge to invest in the mine while preserving jobs made it the best choice.

Many Emirati announcements may never fully materialise or are at an early stage. For example, the 2023 announcement of a $34bn “green hydrogen” project in Mauritania was a Memorandum of Understanding, not a contract.

Some pledges have hit hurdles. In January 2023, the renewable energy company Masdar announced $2bn for 2GW of solar power in Zambia. However, financial problems at the state-owned energy company ZESCO have delayed the investments, said Jito Kayumba, a special assistant to Zambia’s president.

Meanwhile, the amount of illegally smuggled gold to Dubai from Africa has grown, according to researchers. The NGO Swissaid found a difference of 2,569 tonnes between official exports from African countries to the emirate and its imports from Africa from 2012 to 2022, worth $115.3bn.

“African countries need all the financing and trade they can get,” said Ken Opalo, an associate professor at Georgetown University. “However, there is also the opportunity for the attention to breed criminality – like we are seeing in the gold sector.”

Mozambique’s top court has confirmed the ruling party’s victory in October’s presidential elections, potentially triggering more protests after more than two months of unrest over allegations that the results were rigged.

Daniel Chapo, of the ruling Frelimo party, won the 9 October presidential election with 65.2% of the vote, Lúcia Ribeiro, the chair of Mozambique’s constitutional council, told a press conference on Monday.

The figure was lower than that previously announced by the election commission, which said Chapo had won 70.7%, but still more than the 50% needed to win.

Meanwhile, the second-place opposition candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, who has captured the imagination of young urban voters, got 24.2%, up from 20.3%, but nowhere near the majority he has claimed.

The report of the council, whose members are mostly appointed by Frelimo politicians, said there had been “discrepancies” at the district level during the vote counting, without specifying what caused them. It also said that the Podemos party, which supports Mondlane, had submitted “inflated” figures in their challenge to the results.

Mozambique has been roiled by weeks of protests, with security forces killing at least 130 people, according to Human Rights Watch. International election observers have said there was evidence of ballot rigging, but some cautioned that Mondlane may still not have won a free and fair election.

The protests have repeatedly brought Mozambique’s economy to a standstill. Its north has also been battered by Cyclone Chido, which made landfall in the south-east African country on 15 December, killing 120 people and destroying an estimated 110,000 homes.

Before the ruling on Monday afternoon, Mondlane told his supporters to stay at home until Friday, as part of the anti-election protests, whose latest stage he has called “Turbo V8”. He also said they should not commit any violence.

However, in a separate video on Facebook, he said: “If we get the electoral truth [from Ribero], we will have peace. If we get electoral lies, we will push the country over a precipice into chaos, into disorder.”

After the ruling, Mozambican TV stations broadcast footage of tyres being burned in streets that were otherwise empty apart from armed state security officers.

Chapo, who is due to take office on 15 January, told a crowd of cheering Frelimo supporters that he would lead an electoral reform process. “Dialogue is the only way to build social harmony,” he said, without elaborating.

While it was expected that the constitutional council would validate Chapo’s victory with some changes, Mondlane inciting protests rather than bargaining with Frelimo was uncharted territory for Mozambique, said Alex Vines, head of the African programme at the thinktank Chatham House.

“Historically it’s been a weak state with a stronger party,” said Vines, who was part of a Commonwealth election observer team that monitored the vote. “Now you’re finding both a weak state and a weakening party, being challenged by a new politics … led by a charismatic populist leader who has tapped into the anger of disenfranchised, frustrated youth.”

The descendants of a hero of Ethiopia’s resistance against European imperialism are seeking to retrieve a gold medal taken from him by Italian troops, after the artefact’s current holder failed to sell it at an online auction earlier this month.

The solid gold Imperial Order of the Star of Ethiopia used to be in the possession of Ras Desta Damtew, a son-in-law of Emperor Haile Selassie and a guerrilla army commander whose capture and execution in 1937 spelled the end of Ethiopia’s resistance to fascist Italy’s occupation.

Its whereabouts were unknown until this November, when the star-shaped brooch resurfaced on the online platform LiveAuctioneers, where it was offered for sale for an estimated €60,000-90,000 (£50,000-£74,000) by the Lausanne-registered company La Galerie Numismatique.

The website’s listing did not hide the item’s controversial provenance, describing it as coming “from the estate of an Italian soldier who was present at the capture of the prince [Desta Damtew]”.

“My first feeling was anger that they were so blatantly claiming to have taken it from someone who was executed,” said Laly Kassa, one of Desta Damtew’s granddaughters. “This one was so egregious that we just felt like as a family, we had to prove something.”

The family say that, when approached by their lawyer, La Galerie Numismatique initially rebuffed their restitution request, offering to sell the medal for €61,595, including a buyer’s premium and VAT.

At the auction on 1 December, the brooch failed to meet the minimum price required for a winning bid, however, and its current owner, a British collector of military memorabilia based in Spain, has since entered direct talks with the legal representative of Damtew’s family. La Galerie Numismatique did not respond when approached for a comment.

What makes the medal especially significant, according to James De Lorenzi, an associate history professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is that its removal from Ethiopia can be directly connected to an alleged war crime.

Damtew, who decided to fight the Italian invasion while Selassie fled the country in 1936 to go into exile in England, was captured on 24 February 1937 after a skirmish near Mount Gurage and then executed by a group of Ethiopian fighters commanded by Italian officers.

In 1948, the Ethiopian government charged 10 Italian citizens before the UN War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), submitting affidavits describing Damtew’s killing after his capture, when he was a prisoner of war. This evidence led the UNWCC to rule that the 10 Italians were either accused or suspected war criminals.

“The medal was thus obtained by an agent of the fascist regime who was directly involved in this war crime, amid a broader counterinsurgency that involved mass killings, sexual violence, torture, and arbitrary detention,” said De Lorenzi. “Given this provenance, returning the medal to Ethiopia is the only responsible choice.”

While the Imperial Order of the Star of Ethiopia would not be the first precious artefact to be returned to east Africa in recent years, it will probably generate fresh interest in the whereabouts of items looted during the Italian occupation of what was also known as Abyssinia, between 1935 and 1941.

Article 31 of the Paris peace treaties of 1947 stipulated that Italy should within 18 months “restore all Ethiopian works of art, religious objects, archives, and objects of historical value removed from Ethiopia to Italy since October 3, 1935”. But with the exception of the Italian state’s 2005 return of a 1,700-year-old granite monument known as the Axum obelisk, Italian institutions and individuals have mostly failed to follow up on the requirement.

Ras – a royal title roughly equivalent to “duke” – Desta Damtew was a member of the aristocracy that ruled the Ethiopian empire from the middle ages. Royal rule of the country in the Horn of Africa was marked by stark economic inequalities, which fuelled the coup d’etat that toppled the monarchy in 1974.

Damtew’s granddaughter Laly Kassa said his descendants were “unequivocal” that the medal would not be privately held in the event of a restitution. “If we can get the medal back, it will go to a museum,” she said. “We want it on permanent display at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.”

In spite of his royal ties, Desta Damtew was honoured as an icon of African resistance to colonialism even in the socialist People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, and by black solidarity movements across the globe.

Italy first tried to claim Abyssinia as a protectorate in the late 19th century but was defeated emphatically by Ethiopian forces: Damtew’s father, Fitawrari Damtew Ketena, fell in the climactic battle of Adwa in March 1896, which came to be remembered as a defining moment of African defiance.

In 1935, however, Ethiopia became what US president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s foreign policy adviser Sumner Welles called “the first victim of Axis aggression”, when Italy invaded from neighbouring Eritrea.

Mozambique is on edge ahead of a ruling expected on Monday to determine the final results of October’s disputed elections, after allegations of rigging triggered weeks of protests in which security forces have killed dozens of people.

The opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane has threatened “chaos” if the constitutional council confirms the initial election results, which gave the ruling party candidate, Daniel Chapo, 70.7% of the vote and Mondlane 20.3%.

The Podemos party, which is allied with Mondlane, said it should have 138 out of 250 seats in parliament, instead of the 31 that the election commission said it had won.

Mozambique’s Catholic bishops alleged that ballot-stuffing had taken place, while EU election observers noted “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results”.

Mondlane has repeatedly said he won and has urged his supporters to take to the streets. This has brought the economy to a near standstill, including shutting the border and disrupting trade with South Africa.

Security forces have cracked down in response, killing at least 130 people and injuring hundreds more, according to Human Rights Watch. Local media reported that security forces shot dead two mourners on 14 December at a funeral for a blogger known as Mano Shottas, who had been killed while livestreaming a protest two days earlier.

Recently, some protesters have become violent, with offices of the ruling party, Frelimo, set on fire and a statue of the former defence minister Alberto Chipande, who is credited with firing the first shot in Mozambique’s war of independence, pulled down.

“On Monday the whole country must stop,” Mondlane said on Friday in one of his regular broadcasts, which he has been streaming on Facebook from an undisclosed location abroad, where he claims he fled to avoid being assassinated.

Mondlane called for prayers in the south-east African country on Sunday. “We are giving the opportunity to pray for the judges of the constitutional council, to pray for [its chair] Dr Lúcia Ribeiro, so that on Monday, from her, justice comes out, the electoral truth does not come out as a lie,” he said.

Mozambique’s outgoing president, Filipe Nyusi, rebutted Mondlane’s claim that he was planning to cling to power, saying in a Thursday evening broadcast that he would leave office in January as planned.

He also implicitly criticised Mondlane, saying: “It worries us that the process of choosing our leaders was transformed into a pretext to induce and exacerbate social tensions and violent acts.”

Zenaida Machado, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the ruling administration had “decided to brand the entire protest movement as violent to justify their own use of excessive force”.

“The fact that some people within a protest have become violent does not label the entire protests violent,” she said.

While most analysts believe there was some level of rigging, some said it was unclear whether Mondlane had won.

“A 70% majority for Frelimo was a massive surprise to everybody,” said Alex Vines, who was part of a group of election observers from the Commonwealth. “But neither … can [you] say that Venâncio Mondlane won. We just don’t know.

“The [opposition party] Renamo vote collapsed in Renamo heartlands,” said Vines, the head of the Africa programme at the thinktank Chatham House. “Frelimo benefited from that. It was in the urban areas that Podemos and particularly Venâncio prospered, which is not enough, necessarily, to get a majority.”

Four of the constitutional council’s seven judges were appointed by Frelimo parliamentarians, while the chair was appointed by Nyusi.

Adriano Nuvunga, the director of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, a Mozambican non-profit organisation, said: “Everything will depend on what they say at the announcement – whether they will confirm the current results with minor changes or whether there will be a change, which is unrealistic. We are bracing for impact.”

A ferry overloaded with people returning home for Christmas capsized on the Busira River in north-eastern Congo, leaving 38 people confirmed dead and more than 100 others missing, officials and eyewitnesses said on Saturday.

Twenty people have been rescued so far.

The sinking of the ferry late on Friday came less than four days after another boat capsized in the country’s north-east, killing 25 people.

The ferry was travelling as part of a convoy of other vessels and the passengers were primarily merchants returning home for Christmas, said Joseph Joseph Kangolingoli, the mayor of Ingende, the last town on the river before the site of the accident.

According to Ingende resident Ndolo Kaddy, the ferry contained “more than 400 people because it made two ports, Ingende and Loolo, on the way to Boende, so there is reason to believe there were more deaths”.

Congolese officials have often warned against overloading boats and vowed to punish those violating safety measures on rivers. However, in remote areas many people cannot afford public transportation on the few available roads.

At least 78 people drowned in October when an overloaded boat sank in the country’s east while 80 lost their lives in a similar accident near Kinshasa in June.

The latest accident prompted anger at the government for not equipping the convoy with flotation devices.

Nesty Bonina, a member of the local government and a prominent figure in Mbandaka, the capital of the Equateur province where the ferry sank, condemned authorities for not properly handling the recent events.

“How can a ship navigate at night under the watchful eye of river service agents? And now we’re recording over a hundred deaths,” said Bonina.

The capsizing of overloaded boats is becoming increasingly frequent in this central African nation as more people are giving up the few available roads in favour of wooden vessels crumbling under the weight of passengers and their goods for security reasons.

The roads are often caught up in the deadly clashes between Congolese security forces and rebels that sometimes block major access routes.

Emmanuel Macron swore during a furious exchange with residents of the cyclone-hit islands of Mayotte on Thursday night, telling a jeering crowd in the French territory “if this wasn’t France, you’d be in a bath of shit 10,000 times worse”.

Cyclone Chido swept through Mayotte, which lies between Madagascar and Mozambique, on 14 December, destroying vital infrastructure and flattening many of the tin-roofed shacks that make up its large slums. Almost a week after its worst storm in 90 years, France’s poorest territory still has shortages of water.

Throughout Thursday, the French president was confronted by angry Mahorais demanding to know why aid had not yet reached them. At one point he told a crowd: “You are happy to be in France. If this wasn’t France, you’d be in a bath of shit 10,000 times worse. There is no other place in the Indian Ocean where people are helped as much, that’s a fact.”

On Thursday night, Macron said he was extending his visit to a second day “as a mark of respect, of consideration”.

“I decided to sleep here because I considered that, given what the population is going through, [leaving the same day could have] installed the idea that we come, we look, we leave,” he said.

The heckling continued on Friday. “Seven days and you’re not able to give water to the population,” one man shouted at Macron as he toured the small community of Tsingoni, on the west coast of Mayotte’s main island, Grande-Terre.

“I understand your impatience. You can count on me,” Macron responded, saying that water would be distributed at city halls.

The official death toll, at 31, has remained lower than expected, after officials said they feared thousands could have been killed. Immediate burials, in keeping with Islamic tradition, and the large numbers of undocumented migrants from the nearby Comoros who avoid authorities for fear of being deported, may mean the true number of fatalities is never known.

The cyclone also killed 73 people in northern Mozambique and 13 in Malawi, according to authorities in the south-east African countries.

Mayotte officially has a population of 320,000, but authorities have said there could be 100,000-200,000 more, most from the Comoros and living in the islands’ slums. Mayotte became a part of France in 1841 and voted to stay French in 1974, when the Comoros islands chose independence.

Earlier in the week, the interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, a rightwinger who is vocally anti-immigrant, said Mayotte could not be rebuilt without addressing migration.

In Kaweni, a slum on the edge of the island’s capital, Mamoudzou, Ali Djimoi said eight people who had lived close to him were killed by the cyclone, two of them buried quickly near a mosque.

Mayotte had been “completely abandoned” by the French state, he said. “The water running out the pipes – even if it’s working you can’t drink it, it comes out dirty.”

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Southern Thailand is grappling with severe flooding as torrential rainfall, driven by the north-east monsoon, continues to affect the region. During the north-east monsoon, which runs from November to March, winds from the north-east pick up moisture from the Gulf of Thailand and deposit it as heavy rain across the islands in the gulf and into exposed eastern parts of Thailand’s southern peninsula.

While high rainfall totals in southern Thailand are not unusual at this time of year, this year’s has been significantly above average. Ko Samui, Thailand’s second largest island, has recorded 571mm (22.48in) of rain this month – approximately 375% of the December average – with nearly a third of the month yet to go. In the nearby province of Nakhon Si Thammarat on the mainland, another weather station has surpassed 1009mm, more than four times the December norm.

On top of November’s above-average rainfall totals, December’s deluge has resulted in severe flooding in five provinces, displacing thousands of people as buildings have collapsed.

Spain’s Canary Islands have been experiencing a series of extreme weather events in recent days, with December temperatures soaring to the highest levels recorded in 100 years, with many places experiencing temperatures above 30C (86F) These high temperatures have been intensified by a weather phenomenon called a calima (or “blood-rain” when mixed with rainfall).

Calima occurs when Saharan dust is swept into the region by strong winds, giving the skies a striking reddish hue. These dust particles, suspended in the air, have trapped heat, exacerbating the already high temperatures, and reduced visibility to as low as 1,000 metres (3,280ft). Local authorities have advised local people and visitors to stay indoors as the dust cloud lingers, as it can trigger respiratory issues and irritation to the eyes.

Elsewhere, Cyclone Chido has continued its destructive path, making landfall in Malawi on 15 December as a moderate tropical storm with wind speeds of 124mph (200km/h) and heavy rainfall. As of 18 December, the storm has killed an additional seven people and injured a further 16. The cyclone has damaged more than 250 houses in the region, swept roofs off buildings, and blocked roads.

A Ugandan athlete who arrives in London this weekend after running 7,730 miles (12,440km) from South Africa to raise awareness about racism has revealed he suffered repeated abuse on reaching Europe.

Deo Kato set off from Cape Town in July 2023, running steadily north on a 516-day odyssey that has seen him jailed for weeks, laid low with serious illness and having to pass through war zones.

The epic run was conceived by the London-based Kato to highlight the history of human migration and the discrimination faced by many black Africans, a message underlined by the fact he endured daily racism from police and passersby in parts of Europe.

After climbing the equivalent height of 11 Mount Everests during the journey, Kato is due to reach central London on Sunday where he will be joined by hundreds of runners outside Downing Street before completing his route in Hammersmith, west London.

Speaking to the Guardian this week after passing through an overcast Lille, in France, the Ugandan-born runner said that despite some acute lows the overall experience had renewed his faith in humanity. Highlights included a stretch along the Kalahari Highway in Botswana where he was joined by a 15-year-old boy who, Kato said, reminded him of when he was a teenager.

“He was multilingual, speaking three languages, including English. He had spent time in England but moved back to Botswana due to family challenges. We ran together briefly, but it was a moment that warmed my heart.”

Another affirming moment, this time 1,800 miles farther north in Kenya during January, involved a group of children who spontaneously joined Kato for 5 miles as they headed to school. “They wanted to continue running with me,” he said.

On other occasions, however, he almost packed it in. In Uganda, his one-man support crew resigned, leaving him without a support vehicle or help at a time when his funding for the run was almost exhausted. To compound matters, all routes ahead involved either conflict or extreme risk.

“As I looked forward, I noticed conflicts all around me in places such as the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and northern Ethiopia,” said Kato. “Logistically, it felt that there was no possible way of continuing the journey through Africa.”

Another low point arrived more than 5,000 miles later when Kato experienced the racism other Africans have faced in Europe.

“The other time I felt like packing it in was in Croatia because I genuinely felt treated as an illegal immigrant. I didn’t feel welcomed or that I belonged in their society.

“The police stopped me at least four times a day. Sometimes, I caught locals taking photos of me and reporting me to the police,” he said.

“This experience, coupled with everything I was processing from my journey in Africa and other personal challenges, made it intensely difficult to keep moving forward.”

Kato wanted his journey to draw attention to the earliest migration of humans from Africa and challenge the racist notion that people should “go back to where they come from”. Viewed as a whole, he said the run had underlined the positive aspects of migration and its potential to “create a more culturally connected and enriched global society”.

His experiences also led him to believe that humanity will prevail over prejudice. “I think that in the future, we will create a world free from racial discrimination,” he said.

“Although it won’t happen in my lifetime, I believe that my efforts and those of others who are dedicated to this cause are laying the foundations for the next generation to build upon.”

However, he admitted it had also reinforced concerns over the “fortress Europe” approach that the EU is pursuing to prevent migrants from Africa moving north.

“The global north has long-established systems deliberately designed to restrict and criminalise individuals from the global south, particularly Africans.”

Kato’s partner, Alice Light, said the last 18 months had highlighted the best and worst of humanity. “It’s been an unimaginable rollercoaster of highs and lows, of beauty, joy and heartbreak,” she said.

She said the couple had no plans for Christmas. “It has been too unpredictable to make plans but I now know that rest is coming and am grateful for that. I feel immensely proud and blessed to have been on this journey with Deo.”

Kato set off from the Long March to Freedom monument in Cape Town, which commemorates the anti-apartheid struggle, choosing the eastern route through Africa because he wanted to pass through the Ugandan town of Nakulabye, where he grew up, to meet family members he had not seen for years.

At least 35 children have died and six others have been seriously injured in a crowd crush at a school fair in Nigeria’s third-largest city of Ibadan.

“Eight persons have since been arrested for their various involvements” in the incident, Adewale Osifeso, a spokesperson for the police command in Oyo state, said in a statement on Thursday.

Among those detained was the main sponsor of the event on Wednesday at the Basorun Islamic highschool, which was organised by the Wings Foundation and Agidigbo FM radio.

A homicide investigation had been opened, Osifeso said.

The Oyo state governor, Seyi Makinde, shared his condolences on X.

“Our hearts remain with the families and loved ones impacted by this tragedy. May the souls of the departed rest in peace,” he wrote on Wednesday.

“We sympathise with the parents whose joy has suddenly been turned to mourning due to these deaths.”

Video footage that appeared to be from the scene showed a large crowd of mostly children looking on as others were being carried away from an open field.

According to local radio, as many as 5,000 young people had been expected at the event, whose programme said children “will win exciting prizes like scholarships and other bountiful gifts”.

There have been several deadly crowd crushes in the country this year. Two students died and 23 were hurt in March as thousands of people gathered for free bags of rice handed out by local authorities at Nasarawa State University in central Nigeria.

Four women were killed later the same month outside the office of a wealthy businessman in the northern city of Bauchi, where they were waiting to collect a cash gift of 5,000 naira (£2.70) to help pay for food during the Ramadan.

Witnesses said members of the crowd pushed to get hold of the money, causing a crush during Nigeria’s worst economic
crisis in a generation.

Relatives and rights groups have accused fighters from an Islamist paramilitary force aligned with the Sudanese army of executing dozens of young men on suspicion of cooperating with the Rapid Support Forces in the Khartoum area.

The alleged killings occurred in September after fighters crossed a bridge over the Nile River into the city of Khartoum North from neighbouring Omdurman after weeks of trying.

According to local people, fighters from the Al-Bara’ ibn Malik brigade arrested the men in the Halfaya neighbourhood. They said some of the men were killed immediately, while others were taken into custody at the Surkab military base in Omdurman.

The greater Khartoum area consists of the cities of Khartoum, Khartoum North and Omdurman. Most of Omdurman is under army control, but parts of the west of the city are held by the RSF, a paramilitary force. In recent months the army has launched a campaign to try to take back territory held by the RSF in Khartoum and Khartoum North.

On the day of the alleged killings, local people said Islamic jurists were seen travelling with the Al-Bara’ ibn Malik and issuing fatwas to shoot and kill men accused of cooperating with the RSF. The fatwas were based on the testimonies of two men living in the area who allegedly said the men were cooperating with the RSF.

Asmaa Mubarak* said one of her cousins had been killed. She said the 18-year-old and his immediate family, who were from Khartoum North, had fled south to the city of Wad Madani when the war between the army and the RSF broke out in April 2023. They later returned to the Khartoum tri-city area to live with relatives in Omdurman.

According to Mubarak, her cousin decided to cross into Khartoum North to guard the family house from looters on hearing the fighting there had subsided.

She said: “His father asked him to remain with them, but he insisted on going back, telling them that all his peers were there guarding their houses.” Mubarak also claimed that her cousin’s father was told by local people that if he tried to enter Halfaya to retrieve his son’s body for burial he too would be killed.

Mubarak said the family had decided to say that her cousin had died from a stray bullet because they were worried about the social stigma of rumours that he had been working with the RSF.

A South Sudanese refugee called John was killed on the same day, according to Mubarak. “John grew up in the area and his family could not flee the country, they could not afford to do so,” she said. “The Al-Bara battalion came in and accused him of working with the RSF too. He was called a slave.”

Mubarak said she was worried about people living in Shambat, another neighbourhood in Khartoum North that could fall to the army, unless “people intervene to protect those who could not flee but had to stay under the mercy of the RSF”.

Another woman said one of her brothers was killed during the army’s advance into Halfaya and another was taken to the Surkab base – both on the basis of alleged cooperation with the RSF. The woman said both were civilians and that they had not cooperated with the RSF.

The Sudan Democratic Lawyers Front, a rights group, said of the alleged killings: “We think this is a clear war crime and we demand that a comprehensive investigation is opened to find out who the perpetrators are.”

A spokesperson for the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights said last month that it was investigating reports that dozens of civilians had been killed in the greater Khartoum area. They added that the commissioner’s Sudan expert, Radhouane Nouicer, had repeatedly raised concerns about the protection of civilians with the Sudanese authorities.

The Al-Bara’ ibn Malik brigade has been involved in the Sudanese civil war since it began. It is led by young Islamist men who were part of the Islamic movement that ruled the country for 30 years under the former president Omar al-Bashir. It has been contacted for comment about the Khartoum North allegations.

Brig Gen Nabil Abdallah, a spokesperson for the Sudanese army, said army soldiers had not been involved in any alleged extrajudicial killings in Khartoum North. He also accused Tagadum – a pro-civilian-power coalition which is involved in peace negotiations – of orchestrating a smear campaign against the army and echoing RSF propaganda.

The war between the RSF and the regular army, which erupted in April 2023, has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, displaced millions, and left the north-east African country on the brink of famine. The army and the RSF have been accused of targeting civilians in the course of the fighting.

On Monday a high-level UN official warned that the international community had failed to grasp the seriousness of the crisis. Diplomatic efforts “are not commensurate with the needs”, said Mamadou Dian Balde, who is coordinating the UN refugee agency’s response to the Sudan crisis. He told Agence France-Presse that he didn’t think the world realises “the gravity of the Sudanese crisis”, nor its impact.

* Names have been changed

The death toll from Cyclone Chido has continued to rise, with authorities confirming that 45 people were killed in Mozambique and 13 in Malawi.

French officials said the number of deaths on the Mayotte archipelago remained unclear, having previously expressed fears that hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed in slums flattened by the storm. So far, 22 deaths and 1,500 injuries, 200 of them critical, have been confirmed.

The acting interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, told the French station BFMTV on Wednesday: “I cannot give a death toll because I don’t know. I fear the toll will be too heavy.”

The cyclone, which meteorologists said was intensified by climate breakdown, struck Mayotte with winds of up to 140mph (225km/h) on Saturday. It then barrelled across northern Mozambique, where there is an Islamist insurgency, and Malawi.

Nearly 500 people were injured in Mozambique, according to the National Institute of Risk and Disaster Management, and 24,000 homes were destroyed.

Southern Africa was already reeling from a drought this year that had left millions of people battling hunger.

In Mayotte, a French overseas region between Madagascar and Mozambique, the water system was “working at 50%” but there was a risk of “poor quality”, France’s minister for overseas matters, François-Noël Buffet, told radio station Europe 1.

French authorities said on Wednesday that they had started to distribute 23 tons of water. A field hospital should be working by next week, Buffet said, after the territory’s hospital was put out of action by the cyclone.

Mayotte, the poorest part of France, has an official population of 320,000. But there are as many as 200,000 more undocumented migrants, most from the nearby island of Comoros, living in tightly packed tin-roofed shacks.

The anti-immigrant Retailleau also used his BFMTV appearance to criticise Comoros, saying Mayotte could not be rebuilt without addressing migration.

The French president is due to travel to Mayotte on Thursday, with plans to visit a hospital and a destroyed neighbourhood, his office said. “Our compatriots are living through the worst just a few thousand kilometres away,” Emmanuel Macron said.

Some Mahorais expressed anger that Retailleau had not gone to damaged areas when he visited on Monday, including Zaïna Assani, 58, in a call to her daughter from Pamanzi, on Mayotte’s second island, Petite-Terre. “I want to scream,” she said.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.