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A son of prominent South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko has told the BBC the family is confident a new inquest into his death 48 years ago will lead to the prosecution of those responsible. Seen as a martyr in the struggle against white-minority rule, the Black Consciousness Movement founder died from a brain injury […]

The queue to get fuel rather than the queue to vote is what is on the mind of many Malawians as Tuesday’s general election approaches. Prolonged petrol shortages, along with regular power cuts, the rising cost of living, hunger, poverty, inequality and youth unemployment, add to the tangible frustration here. The presidential, parliamentary and local […]

The giant pot in which Nigerian chef and former Guinness World Record holder Hilda Baci attempted to make the world’s largest dish of jollof rice has broken as it was being hoisted on a crane to be weighed. Thousands of people gathered in Lagos to watch the latest world record bid from the well-known food […]

The king of South Africa’s large Zulu community has challenged a professor and cultural expert to a stick fight, saying he had been insulted, along with the entire Zulu nation. King Misuzulu kaZwelithini issued the challenge to Prof Musa Xulu in front of thousands of people who had gathered at his newly built royal palace […]

A man running a sex ring operating out of Dubai’s most glamorous neighbourhoods, and exploiting vulnerable women, has been identified by a BBC investigation. Charles Mwesigwa, who says he is a former London bus driver, told our undercover reporter he could provide women for a sex party at a starting price of $1,000 (£740), adding […]

Ghana has become the latest country to accept people deported from the US as part of its campaign against undocumented migrants. President John Mahama said nationals from various West African countries would now be taken in following a bilateral agreement with the US. He said 14 had already arrived. He cited the regional bloc Ecowas’s […]

Nearly 130 people have been “summarily executed” by Islamist insurgents in Niger in separate attacks since March, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. The rights group says gunmen carried out a series of brutal attacks, including a mass murder at a mosque in the western Tillabéri region in June, where more than 70 […]

Seven Chinese nationals who smuggled Malawians to South Africa and subjected them to forced labour have been handed 20-year prison terms each. The four men and three women were found guilty of human trafficking and kidnapping earlier this year by a South African court. Their sentence comes nearly six years after they were arrested when […]

The threat of flooding once again looms over the city of Maiduguri, in north-eastern Nigeria, a year after torrential rains and the collapse of a dam left entire neighbourhoods submerged in water. For many residents who are still bearing the scars of last year’s floods, the possibility of a repeat has created huge unease. At […]

Kenya has been left in shock after the killing of a senior lawyer in a drive-by shooting on a busy street in the capital Nairobi. Mathew Kyalo Mbobu, a respected lawyer and former head of a political parties’ dispute tribunal, was driving home on Tuesday evening when a gunman on a motorcycle pulled alongside his […]