Uganda has reached an agreement with the US to take in deportees from third countries who may not get asylum, but are “reluctant” to go back to their own countries, according to Uganda’s foreign ministry.

Uganda won’t accept people with criminal records or unaccompanied minors under the temporary arrangement, ​​ the foreign ministry’s permanent secretary said in a statement. He did not say whether Uganda was receiving any payment or other benefits and how many deportees it would accept.

“Uganda also prefers that individuals from African countries shall be the ones transferred to Uganda. The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented,” Bagiire Vincent Waiswa said.

The government of the east African country is the latest to strike a deal with the US, which is seeking to expel millions of undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and foreigners with criminal convictions.

In July, five immigrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba, who Washington said had been convicted of serious crimes, were flown to Eswatini, where they are now in a high security prison. The deportations are being challenged by a group of Swazi and southern African NGOs, with a high court hearing scheduled for Friday.

Also in July, eight men from various countries were deported by the US to South Sudan, via Djibouti, where they were held for weeks in a shipping container. Meanwhile, more than 250 Venezuelans were repatriated to Venezuela after being sent to a notorious El Salvador prison in March without due process.

Uganda is a US ally and has been ruled by 80-year-old president Yoweri Museveni for almost 40 years. His political opponents are regularly sent to jail.

On Wednesday, a Ugandan official denied that it had reached a deal with the US, saying that they did not have the facilities and infrastructure to accommodate immigrants. The denial followed a CBS News story on Tuesday that cited internal government documents, reporting that the White House had reached deportation deals with Honduras and Uganda.

Uganda hosts nearly 2 million refugees and asylum seekers, most from other east African countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan and Sudan.

Uganda has reached an agreement with the US to take in deportees from third countries who may not get asylum, but are “reluctant” to go back to their own countries, according to Uganda’s foreign ministry.

Uganda won’t accept people with criminal records or unaccompanied minors under the temporary arrangement, ​​ the foreign ministry’s permanent secretary said in a statement. He did not say whether Uganda was receiving any payment or other benefits and how many deportees it would accept.

“Uganda also prefers that individuals from African countries shall be the ones transferred to Uganda. The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented,” Bagiire Vincent Waiswa said.

The government of the east African country is the latest to strike a deal with the US, which is seeking to expel millions of undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and foreigners with criminal convictions.

In July, five immigrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba, who Washington said had been convicted of serious crimes, were flown to Eswatini, where they are now in a high security prison. The deportations are being challenged by a group of Swazi and southern African NGOs, with a high court hearing scheduled for Friday.

Also in July, eight men from various countries were deported by the US to South Sudan, via Djibouti, where they were held for weeks in a shipping container. Meanwhile, more than 250 Venezuelans were repatriated to Venezuela after being sent to a notorious El Salvador prison in March without due process.

Uganda is a US ally and has been ruled by 80-year-old president Yoweri Museveni for almost 40 years. His political opponents are regularly sent to jail.

On Wednesday, a Ugandan official denied that it had reached a deal with the US, saying that they did not have the facilities and infrastructure to accommodate immigrants. The denial followed a CBS News story on Tuesday that cited internal government documents, reporting that the White House had reached deportation deals with Honduras and Uganda.

Uganda hosts nearly 2 million refugees and asylum seekers, most from other east African countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan and Sudan.

Pressure is mounting on the Tanzanian government to release a woman with severe intellectual disabilities who has been in prison awaiting execution for 13 years.

Lemi Limbu, who is now in her early 30s, was convicted of the murder of her daughter in 2015. A survivor of brutal and repeated sexual and domestic violence, she has the developmental age of a child.

Limbu’s legal team is now worried about her deteriorating health. On a visit to the prison in June, one of her lawyers found that Limbu required assistance to walk, her stomach was swollen and her mental health had worsened. “She looked sick, weak and sad,” the lawyer said.

In Tanzania, the death penalty is the mandatory sentence for murder. Limbu’s original conviction in 2015 was nullified in 2019 due to procedural errors. But she remained incarcerated awaiting a new trial.

In 2022, she was retried and sentenced to death a second time. The court did not consider her intellectual disabilities or history of abuse. An appeal was filed in 2022 but no date for a hearing has been set.

“The constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania requires courts to not delay dispensation of justice unreasonably,” said the lawyer. “According to our laws, justice should not only be done, but be seen to be done.”

“This is a woman who absolutely should not be in prison,” said Prof Sandra Babcock, a clinical professor of law and the faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, who is acting as a legal consultant in Limbu’s case.

“This is a woman who is not violent, who represents no threat. You could release her tomorrow, and, as long as she had some kind of support for her disability, she would be able to live a reasonably productive life in society. She is somebody who needs protection.”

A coalition of 24 African and international human rights groups earlier this year condemned Limbu’s sentence as part of an appeal to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to look at the plight of women on death row throughout Africa.

Limbu grew up in an environment of violence. Her father beat her mother and she was repeatedly raped by men in her village, who would drag her from her home. She gave birth at 15 after becoming pregnant by rape.

At about 18, she married an older man and had two more children. She later fled from her husband, who beat her, and moved to a different village with her youngest child, Tabu, who was about a year old.

There she met Kijiji Nyamabu, an alcoholic, who told Limbu he would marry her – but he said he would never accept her baby daughter, Tabu, because she had been fathered by a different man.

Shortly afterwards, Tabu was found strangled. There were no witnesses and Kijiji had already fled by the time Limbu brought the authorities to her daughter’s body. She was arrested in August 2011 but Kijiji was never detained.

At her first trial in 2015, Limbu pleaded not guilty. Unable to read or write, she said she did not know the contents of a statement that police claimed she had made admitting to the murder. She said she was beaten, threatened at gunpoint and detained for two days at the police station.

At her 2022 retrial, the high court did not allow evidence from medical professionals. A clinical psychologist who evaluated her had concluded she had a severe intellectual disability and the developmental age of a 10-year-old child or younger.

Under international law, Limbu should not be held criminally liable, given her intellectual disability.

Prison conditions in Tanzania are “dire”, according to Fulgence T Massawe, director of access to justice at the Legal and Human Rights Centre, a Tanzanian advocacy organisation.

He said that in terms of supplies and sanitation, conditions in prisons were bad and the prevailing belief was that it was not a hotel “and people are here to serve their term”. ”

In a letter requesting a UN special rapporteurs appeal to the Tanzanian government, Babcock wrote: “Without urgent intervention, the poor standard of care Limbu is receiving creates an unacceptable risk that her condition will deteriorate further and become critical.”

She said Limbu’s case was “a clear example of the profoundly unjust consequences of Tanzania’s mandatory death penalty”, adding: “Limbu has been a victim of abuse since childhood and is uniquely vulnerable because of her intellectual disability.”

South Africa’s sport, arts and culture minister, Gayton McKenzie, is under investigation by the country’s human rights commission for historical social media posts containing a highly offensive racial slur, reigniting a debate about racism, identity and the lingering effects of colonialism and apartheid.

McKenzie, an anti-immigrant populist from the Coloured community with a history of stirring up controversies, was given a Wednesday evening deadline by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to issue an approved apology, undergo sensitivity training, donate to an agreed charity and delete the X posts, which were still online at the time of publication.

The posts came to light after the hosts of a podcast called Open Chats said on an episode that Coloured people committed incest and were “crazy”. The podcast segment was later removed.

McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance party, which got 2% of the vote in 2024 national elections and draws its support mainly from Coloured people, filed complaints with the police and the SAHRC. McKenzie told the national broadcaster: “There should be no place to hide for racists.”

Social media sleuths soon unearthed posts made on X between 2011 and 2017, where McKenzie had used the word “kaffir” – a racial slur for black people – though he was not directing it at particular individuals.

In posts on X on 11 August, McKenzie denied being racist and said he was also Black.

“I did tweet some insensitive, stupid and hurtful things a decade or two ago, I was a troll & stupid,” he wrote. “I cringe when seeing them and I am truly sorry for that. I shall subject myself to the investigation.”

Tshepo Madlingozi, the SAHRC’s anti-racism commissioner, told a local TV channel, Newzroom Afrika, on 17 August: “The use of the K-word has been declared unlawful. The use of the K-word, to quote the constitutional court, is unutterable … the court has made it very clear that it is one of the most offensive slurs that one can use.”

He said of the posts still being online: “The harm is ongoing, the harm continues and the alleged offences are still there.”

The white minority apartheid regime, which took power in 1948, forcibly separated South Africans into Native, Coloured, Indian and White categories. It lumped together mixed-race people – descendants of south-east Asian enslaved people, Khoisan Indigenous communities and Europeans – as Coloured and gave them slightly better benefits than their Black counterparts.

Today, official data is still collected in four racial categories – Black African, Coloured, Indian/Asian and White. Coloured people were 8.2% of the population in the 2022 census.

The tensions that the apartheid “divide and rule” strategy fostered are still evident.

“In my entire life, I have never called anybody the K-word, never. We are the victims. This is a political campaign,” McKenzie said in a Facebook Live video on 10 August. McKenzie and his spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Tessa Dooms, co-author of the book Coloured, said: “Even if what he had to say was not meant to be derogatory, in a context where Coloured communities have been accused of anti-blackness, the use of that word by a very prominent Coloured figure in society would always be read in the context of presumed anti-blackness.”

She said that while some Coloured people were racist, “anti-blackness was cultivated as part of the apartheid project”.

The enduring tensions are owing, in large part, to many communities still living in the separate areas forced on them by apartheid, said Jamil Khan, who researches Coloured identities at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study.

Khan said: “What this shows us, really, is that South Africans don’t really know each other.”

Uganda said it has not reached any agreement with the US to take in undocumented immigrants, contradicting reports that the east African country had struck a deal with the Trump administration to do so.

Henry Oryem Okello, Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs, told Reuters the country does not have the capability to take in immigrants. It comes as the US has deported migrants convicted of crimes in the US to non-native countries including South Sudan and Eswatini.

“To the best of my knowledge we have not reached such an agreement. We do not have the facilities and infrastructure to accommodate such illegal immigrants in Uganda. So, we cannot take in such illegal immigrants,” Oryem said.

On Tuesday, CBS News, citing internal government documents, reported that the White House had reached deportation deals with Honduras and Uganda. CBS News wrote that Uganda had “agreed to accept deportees from the US who hail from other countries on the continent, as long as they don’t have criminal histories”.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.

The US Department of Homeland Security said in June that third-country deportations – sending undocumented migrants from the US to countries other than their own – were necessary to expel people “so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back”.

Critics have said the deportations are unnecessarily cruel. In July, the US flew five immigrants from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba to Eswatini – an absolute monarchy with a troubling record. Eswatini, the subject of a damning human rights report by the state department in 2023, said it had accepted the US deportees after “months of robust high-level engagements” with the US.

Though other administrations have conducted third-country removals, the Trump administration’s practice of sending immigrants to countries facing political and human rights crises have raised international alarm and condemnation.

Uganda, a US ally in east Africa, hosts nearly 2 million refugees and asylum-seekers, who mostly come from countries in the region such as Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Sudan.

Diphtheria cases are rapidly increasing across Somalia, officials and humanitarians warn, with children accounting for more than 97% of the cases.

Diphtheria, a highly contagious and deadly bacterial disease that mainly affects children, is preventable by a vaccine. While Somalia has improved vaccination rates in recent years, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) blames the uptick in cases on persisting immunisation gaps.

Abdulrazaq Yusuf Ahmed, the director of Demartino public hospital in the capital, Mogadishu, said: “The number of recorded cases of children sick with diphtheria has increased across the regions in the whole country. We have received about 49 patients in the whole of 2024 but this year, 2025, we have received 497 diphtheria cases during the last four months alone.”

Deaths had risen from 13 to 42, according to a report by Ahmed’s hospital this month. The report described the resurgence of diphtheria as “one of the most urgent and dangerous threats to public health”.

Earlier this month, the health ministry said it had recorded 1,616 cases and 87 deaths from the disease so far this year.

MSF’s Somalia medical coordinator, Frida Athanassiadis, said: “We are seeing a rapid increase in diphtheria among children under 15 in central Somalia,” adding that they accounted for roughly 97% of cases. “Low vaccination coverage, vaccine hesitancy and poor living conditions are driving the spread.”

Athanassiadis said that in some medical centres the basic resources were “insufficient to cope with rising caseloads”.

MSF said while teams initially had a small emergency stock of the antitoxin, it had now been exhausted, with the health ministry and the World Health Organization helping to distribute the “limited available stock based on needs”.

In July, Save the Children warned that since April cases of measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, cholera and severe respiratory infections in Somalia had doubled from roughly 22,600 to more than 46,000. About 60% of the cases were children under five, it said.

“The sharp rise in vaccine-preventable diseases is linked to the recent aid cuts, which have impacted the health system’s capacity to deliver essential services, including routine immunisation, and to treat and run catch-up campaigns to increase the immunity necessary to halt the outbreak,” the NGO said.

In Mogadishu, one resident, Abdiwahid Ali, said: “Many children in my neighbourhood are sick, some of them hospitalised.”

Anab Hassan, a grocer, said people were concerned about the outbreak. “A friend of mine lost a five-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with diphtheria, and several others told me their children are sick and coughing,” she said. “We hear about children getting sick every day.”

A furious row over whether the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema, will preside over the funeral of his predecessor, Edgar Lungu, is raging, as the former president’s family wages a legal battle in South Africa to try to stop his body from being repatriated to Zambia.

The legal fight marks the latest twist in a feud between the two men that goes back at least a decade and has now outlasted the former president, who died in South Africa in June aged 68 while being treated for an undisclosed illness.

Mourners had already arrived at the funeral in Johannesburg in June when it was halted by a high court judge, after an 11th-hour request by Zambia’s attorney general, Mulilo Kabesha. Lungu’s family said he specifically requested that Hichilema not attend his funeral.

On 8 August, the Pretoria high court ruled that Lungu’s body could be sent back to Zambia for a state funeral. Lungu’s older sister Bertha broke down, shouting across the courtroom at Kabesha as she was restrained by other relatives.

Lungu’s family then applied for leave to appeal. On Monday, the high court adjourned the case indefinitely, while South Africa’s constitutional court decides whether to hear the appeal. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories have spread, from rumours that Lungu is not actually dead to speculation that Hichilema wants to use the body for witchcraft.

Many Zambians have joked about the saga. “It’s coming home!” Kodwani Banda, a self-described “youth advocate”, posted to his 356,000 Facebook followers, with an image of white smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel chimney.

“There should have been more sympathy,” said Emmanuel Mwamba, spokesperson for the Patriotic Front, Lungu’s party. “When [government officials] came to South Africa, they were just interested in picking up the body and holding the funeral. It was very mechanical. Their approach lacked sympathy, lacked empathy, lacked a sense of Africanness, a sense of ubuntu.”

Kabesha had previously argued a state funeral with full military honours was a legal requirement, citing a court ruling on the burial of Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda. “The moment that a national mourning is declared, the law kicks in,” he told the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation in June.

Mwamba responded that a state funeral could be held without the current president presiding over it: “His presence doesn’t make it. A state funeral is, in fact, the protocols such as the gun salute, the pallbearers being soldiers, the ceremony being handled by the defence forces.”

Sishuwa Sishuwa, a political historian and senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University, said the burial dispute had heightened political discord in Zambia.

“The faultlines have always been there, but the dispute over Lungu’s burial place has exacerbated the country’s regional and political polarisation,” he said.

“Whatever way the dispute is resolved, it will have a significant bearing on the 2026 elections … A key reason behind the government’s court action in South Africa is to reduce the political costs of burying Lungu in exile.”

Lungu ruled Zambia from 2015 to 2021, taking over when Michael Sata died in office. He then defeated Hichilema in the 2016 presidential election, which Hichilema and his United Party for National Development (UPND) party claimed was rigged.

The following year, Hichilema was sent to prison to await trial on treason charges, after his convoy did not give way to Lungu’s presidential motorcade. Four months later, after an international outcry, he was released and the charges were dropped.

Hichilema finally defeated Lungu in the 2021 elections, amid an economic crisis. Since then, he has been accused of using similar oppressive methods to his longtime rival.

In 2023, police stopped Lungu from going out for runs, saying they were “political activism” that had to be approved in advance to “ensure public safety”. His wife and children have also faced corruption charges, which they have denied and said were politically motivated.

In 2024, Lungu was banned from running in next year’s presidential election by the constitutional court, which ruled that the period from when Lungu took office in 2015 until the 2016 election counted as a full first term.

The African Union has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organisations of the 16th-century Mercator map of the world in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size.

Created by the cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigation, the projection distorts continent sizes, enlarging areas near the poles like North America and Greenland while shrinking Africa and South America. “It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not,” the African Union Commission deputy chair, Selma Malika Haddadi, told Reuters, saying the Mercator fostered a false impression that Africa was “marginal”, despite being the world’s second-largest continent by area, with more than 1 billion people. The union has 55 member states.

Such stereotypes influence media, education and policy, she said.

Criticism of the Mercator map is not new, but the Correct the Map campaign led by the advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa has revived the debate, urging organisations to adopt the 2018 Equal Earth projection, which tries to reflect countries’ true sizes.

“The current size of the map of Africa is wrong,” said Moky Makura, the executive director of Africa No Filter. “It’s the world’s longest misinformation and disinformation campaign, and it just simply has to stop.”

Fara Ndiaye, a co-founder of Speak Up Africa, said the Mercator affected Africans’ identity and pride, especially children who might encounter it early in school.

“We’re actively working on promoting a curriculum where the Equal Earth projection will be the main standard across all [African] classrooms,” Ndiaye said, adding she hoped it would also be the one used by global institutions, including Africa-based ones. Haddadi said the AU endorsed the campaign, adding it aligned with its goal of “reclaiming Africa’s rightful place on the global stage” amid growing calls for reparations for colonialism and slavery.

The AU will advocate for wider map adoption and discuss collective actions with member states, Haddadi added.

The Mercator projection is still widely used, including by schools and tech companies. Google Maps switched from Mercator on desktop to a 3D globe view in 2018, though users can still switch back to the Mercator if they prefer.

On the mobile app, however, the Mercator projection remains the default.

Correct the Map wants organisations such as the World Bank and the UN to adopt the Equal Earth map. A World Bank spokesperson said it already used the Winkel tripel projection or Equal Earth for static maps and was phasing out Mercator on web maps.

The campaign said it had sent a request to the UN geospatial body, UN-GGIM. A UN spokesperson said that once received it must be reviewed and approved by a committee of experts.

Other regions are backing the AU’s efforts. Dorbrene O’Marde, the vice-chair of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Reparations Commission, endorsed Equal Earth as a rejection of the Mercator map’s “ideology of power and dominance”.

Mali’s military rulers have arrested a group of military personnel and civilians, including two Malian generals and a suspected French agent, accusing them of attempting to destabilise the country.

The announcement followed rumours in recent days of arrests of army officers. It was made by the security minister, Gen Daouda Aly Mohammedine on the local evening news on Thursday. He assured viewers that an investigation was under way and that the situation was “completely under control”.

The development comes as the military continues to crack down on dissent after a pro-democracy rally in May, the first since soldiers seized power nearly four years ago.

Few details were provided about the alleged coup plotters, what they had intended or the French national implicated in it, beyond identifying him as Yann Vezilier. Mohammedine said he had been acting “on behalf of the French intelligence service, which mobilised political leaders, civil society actors and military personnel” in Mali.

There was no immediate word from France, Mali’s former colonial ruler, on the Vezilier’s arrest.

“The transitional government informs the national public of the arrest of a small group of marginal elements of the Malian armed and security forces for criminal offences aimed at destabilising the institutions of the republic,” Mohammedine said. “The conspiracy has been foiled with the arrests of those involved.”

National television broadcast photos of 11 people it said were members of the group that planned the coup, and Mohammedine identified two generals he accused of being part of the plot, which he said had begun on 1 August.

One of them, Gen Abass Dembélé, is a former governor of the central Mopti region. He was abruptly dismissed in May, when he demanded an investigation into allegations that the army had killed civilians in the village of Diafarabé.

The other, Gen Néma Sagara, was lauded for her role in fighting militants in 2012.

Rida Lyammouri, an analyst at the Morocco-based Policy Center for the New South, said Mali’s rulers were well aware of discontent among the population and members of the military.

“The military leaders are simply not willing to let those grievances build into something more, like a coup, and therefore these arrests seem more of a way to intimidate than a legitimate coup attempt,” he said.

“It’s a continuation of the repeated unjustified arrests and prosecution of anyone speaking against the current regime. We have seen this behaviour against journalists, civil society and political leaders, so it’s not surprising to see this against military members.”

Mali, along with neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, has long fought an insurgency by armed militants, including some allied with al-Qaida and Islamic State.

After two military coups, the ruling junta expelled French troops in 2022 and turned to Russia for security assistance. But the security situation remains precarious, and attacks by militants have intensified in recent months.

Gen Assimi Goïta was granted another five years in power in June, despite the junta’s earlier promises of a return to civilian rule by March 2024. The move followed the military’s dissolution of political parties in May.

Typhoon Podul crossed southern Taiwan on Wednesday with wind speeds of up to 110mph (177km/h), equivalent to a category 2 hurricane.

Podul had developed a week earlier, near the Northern Mariana Islands, and tracked west across the Philippine Sea, achieving typhoon status on Tuesday before making landfall in south-east Taiwan the following day.

Podul whipped up high waves along the east coast, where a man died after being swept away while fishing. As the storm travelled overland, it dumped large amounts of rain across the south of the island, with 440mm recorded in parts of Pingtung County, causing widespread flooding and agricultural damage.

Schools, offices and businesses closed as the storm approached, and more than 7,000 people were evacuated from their homes, mainly in mountainous regions, amid fears of flash flooding and landslides.

Almost 300,000 homes lost power, shipping routes were suspended, and about 400 flights were cancelled, including domestic trips.

Podul then veered north-east across the Taiwan strait and weakened slightly to a severe tropical storm, before making landfall once again in Fujian province, China, in the early hours of Thursday.

Despite weaker winds, Podul lashed south-east China with similarly torrential rain – Macau on the south coast recorded 110mm in an hour.

Cape Verde experienced similar downpours on Monday after Tropical Storm Erin developed nearby, causing flash flooding on the north-west islands of Santo Antão and São Vicente. The latter received 193mm of rain within five hours, more than 150% of the yearly average.

At least nine deaths have been reported, with several people missing and about 1,500 displaced. Erin will pass to the north of the Caribbean over the weekend, and is expected to achieved hurricane status.

Meanwhile, as a heatwave grips the Middle East, the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley have particularly suffered in recent days. The region is susceptible to high temperatures because of its low altitude – it is several hundred metres below sea level in places – and temperatures approached 50C (122F) on Wednesday.

Unusually high humidity – about 80% at times – has contributed to the sweltering temperatures. As humid air cools more slowly than drier air, overnight cooling has been limited, leading Israel to record its highest overnight minimum on Wednesday, when it reached 38C near Mount Sodom.

Temperature records were also set in southern and western Europe this week as yet another heatwave swept the continent. Alongside myriad date records, several all-time peaks were hit in southern France on Sunday and Monday, including in the department of Aude (43.4C) and the cities of Angoulême, Bergerac and Bordeaux (42.1C, 42.1C and 41.6C respectively).

Also on Monday, it reached record highs in the Croatian cities of Šibenik (39.5C) and Dubrovnik (38.9C).

A world heritage site that was once a famous tourist destination is suffering from signs of disintegration, as climate change affects weather patterns.

The wavy-walled houses covered with singular geometric lines of the Royal Court of Tiébélé in Burkina Faso, established in the 16th century, are recognisable all over the world. The paintings represent the thoughts, culture, and religion of the Kassena people, literally written on the walls.

Tiébélé in southern Burkina Faso is one of only four Burkinabé sites on the Unesco world heritage list. But it is now on the brink of extinction. “Nowadays, it’s easier to build with metal roofs and cement,” says Abdou Anè, a young resident in Tiébélé.

For many years, Tiébélé was an unmissable tourist destination in Burkina Faso. But the jihadist violence that has been rumbling through the country and its neighbours, Mali and Niger, since 2015 is deterring visitors. To reach Tiébélé, for example, a visitor has to cross a bridge known as Nazinon, which was attacked some time ago. Drivers have to keep to 30km/h and it is under heavy military control.

The failed coup d’état of 2015 and subsequent unrest has dampened the tourism industry, with numbers declining every year.

Meanwhile, the threat to the delicate structures from climate change is growing. “To paint the walls, they must be completely dry, but now the rain is unpredictable, and it has already happened that it starts raining while we’re working on restoration,” says Anè. Plastic sheets are not enough to protect the paintings. “Even though we are very proud to be recognised as a world heritage site, we also need help to keep preserving it.”

“Sometimes we get rain during periods when we didn’t before. Before, in March or April, we would get one rain known as the ‘mango rain’, but today we can get three to four rains”, says Anè. “There are trees that no longer produce, and it’s with those that we used to build our houses. This worries the population, especially the elderly who remember what the climate used to be like, because it’s a new kind of change. The rain comes abundantly – more than what people expected. It’s a phenomenon people don’t understand. For example, now we are in August and there is no rain. People are really worried. Those who have seen the seasons of the past and compare them to today are worried. Those who were born into this situation don’t understand the change.”

In Kassena culture, found only in this region of the world, the women are responsible for painting the houses. For the unique painted lines, they use pigments extracted from laterite stone, clay, basalt, and even cow dung – materials native to the region. To fix the markings to the walls, they boil the fruit of the néré tree, also known as the “flour tree”, to make a varnish that seals the paint. All this knowledge and skill resides in the head of octogenarian Kaye Tintama, recognised as a “living human treasure” by Unesco, a living library responsible for passing on the decoration techniques and the meanings behind the walls and shapes of Tiébélé’s houses to new generations.

The award-winning architect Francis Kéré has been inspired by the way the Kassena have used natural materials to protect themselves from intense heat and heavy rain for hundreds of years. “[The] Kassena passed his architecture to the present, to the future generations, and this method is inspiring for me,” Kéré told the Guardian.

The shape of the houses is significant. Round houses such as Ané’s are for unmarried men, but those shaped like a figure of eight are for older women and unmarried daughters, and rectangular houses are for young couples. “They inspired me to use locally available materials to create the habitat, but also the way they create, they involve all the community, which is highly important for me,” says Kéré.

Many of the houses feature a small entrance door to prevent animals from coming in, but also to force visitors to kneel, a position of vulnerability that allows inhabitants to neutralise a possible intruder.

The rooftops are designed to dry cereals after the harvest. On the walls, reliefs of snakes symbolise the spirits of grandmothers or the cultural guardian spirit of the Kassena people, who appears once a year during which the population must remain silent and avoid music as it passes. It’s a monument under open skies that now coexists with concrete, sheet metal, and iron windows. “It’s very hard to find straw to make the roofs,” explains Ané as he points to the paillote of his house, destroyed by the wind.

The men are in charge of building the houses. It takes a month and a mix of earth, straw, and logs to build the structure. “Chemical products have weakened the soil,” explains Ané, lamenting that the houses no longer last like they used to.

In this part of the world, the climate crisis is felt in an accelerated way and without the resources to face it. Even though Sahel countries contribute only 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, they are among those suffering the most from its consequences: temperatures have risen 1.5 times faster than the global average. Additionally, 80% of Burkina Faso’s population lives from agriculture and land-based work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five big stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When did this become an issue?

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

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

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

What are the side-effects?

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

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

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

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

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

Is this just affecting African women?

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

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

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

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

How can we stop it?

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

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

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

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

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

What else we’ve been reading

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

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

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

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

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

Sport

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

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

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

The front pages

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

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

Today in Focus

How Israel used Microsoft technology to spy on Palestinians

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

Cartoon of the day | Ella Baron

The Upside

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bored at work?

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

• Quick crossword

• Cryptic crossword

• Wordiply

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, he confirmed the arrival of the seven children.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agence France-Presse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Groups also levy taxes on farmers and artisanal miners.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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