Africa this week: 14-18 January 2019, as it happened

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Human rights groups in Zimbabwe say at least 12 people have been killed during several days of violent protests sparked by a sharp rise in the price of fuel.

Hospitals and clinics have reportedly treated a further 78 gunshot victims, and more than a hundred cases involving assault, torture, and dog bites - all blamed on Zimbabwe’s security forces.

The opposition says hundreds of people have been arrested and many more beaten and tortured by security forces.

A coalition of local human rights groups acknowledged there had been some looting and violence by protesters. But said it condemned, with great disdain, the random and indiscriminate response of the police and army.

Zimbabwe’s opposition has accused the government of behaving like a rogue state – and of cutting off the internet in the hope of hiding its crimes against humanity beneath a blanket of darkness. While some access appears to have been restored, many people say that social media platforms remain blocked.

This has added to a sense of deepening crisis for a country which had hoped its worst years were over.

Public anger erupted after the government, desperately short of cash, raised the price of petrol.

Many Zimbabweans, worn down by years of economic hardship, suddenly found they couldn’t even afford the bus fare to work.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa is currently abroad, trying to woo foreign investors.

But news of his brutal security crackdown at home is leaking out – despite the lack of internet.

Repression was a hallmark of the governing Zanu-PF under Robert Mugabe. It doesn’t seem like much has changed since he was pushed out.

A Benin-based business is taking legal action against Niger, accusing its government of breaching a contract for an ambitious trans-national railway line and handing the project to a French firm instead, reports La Lettre du Continent [paywall].

Africarail says construction of the Niger section of a railway that will link Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin and Togo has been awarded to Bolloré, which is owned by the French billionaire Vincent Bolloré who is currently being investigated in an Africa corruption probe.

The Nigerien government has not responded to the BBC's requests for an interview.

La lettre du Continent reports that Africarail is seeking compensation.

Thousands of people in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, have turned out for the funeral of a man shot late on Thursday during clashes with the security forces.

One witness said police opened fire as the mourners threw rocks, calling for President Omar al-Bashir to step down - a constant chant at country-wide demonstrations now in their fifth week.

A doctor and a boy were also shot dead on Thursday. A group of anti-government doctors called the killings cold-blooded and announced a strike at a large private hospital.

The rights group Amnesty International has urged Sudan to end what what it called a "continued onslaught" against medical facilities and injured protesters.

It said security forces were killing people in an unbridled spree that was even affecting children.

Ethiopia has received warm praise from the UN and other aid agencies for granting 900,000 refugees the right to leave their camps and seek work, schooling and access to bank accounts.

The UN said giving displaced people dignity was the smart thing to do, and an example to other countries where refugee rights are instead being eroded.

Ethiopian officials said it was a win-win policy because a large untapped number of previously economically inactive people would help boost economic growth.

Many of Ethiopia's refugees, from conflicts in neighbouring countries, have spent decades in one of 20 camps, largely dependent on foreign aid.

The law, approved on Thursday, is Ethiopia's commitment to a recent UN compact to improve the lives of the world's 25 million refugees and to ease the burden on host nations.

Ghanaian undercover journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale, who was shot dead while driving home, is being buried today.

An MP, Kennedy Agyapong, who had threatened him has left the country denying he knew of the murder.

The journalist was a key member of the team which exposed corruption within the Ghanaian Football Association.

After the BBC broadcast the documentary several months ago, Mr Agyapong circulated photos of Mr Hussein-Suale and called for retribution against him.

Many in Ghana have condemned his actions, accusing him of exposing the undercover journalist to harm.

Mr Agyepong told local media he did not regret his comments and denied any involvement in the murder. He said he would submit to any form of investigation.

Meanwhile, President Nana Akufo-Addo has condemned the killing of the journalist and urged the police to increase its efforts to find those responsible.

The President of the Ghana Journalist Association, Affail Monney, has urged journalists to remain calm and not be intimidated by the incident.

Mr Husein-Suale, was shot three times in his car by an identified gunmen on a motorbike.

Al-Shabab militants have abducted at least 60 schoolchildren from a village in south-western Somalia, according to local media reports.

The children were kidnapped mostly from Koranic schools in El Garas village, in Bakool Region.

The Islamist militant group is believed to have kidnapped the children to recruit and train them as child soldiers.

South-west State deputy minister of security, Abdirizak Aden, told local media that the abducted children are aged between 14 and 20 years.

There are reports that al-Shabab has been demanding residents of areas under its control to hand over their children as recruits.

This has led to the emergence of self-organised groups of Somali villagers who are resisting al-Shabab's move to recruit child soldiers.

Reports from Zimbabwe indicate that access to the internet appears to have been restored, but that access to social media platforms and messaging apps such as WhatsApp remains blocked.

Many Zimbabweans rely on platforms like WhatsApp as a key source of information.

Corbis/Getty ImagesCopyright: Corbis/Getty Images

One of the health bodies spearheading the drive to eradicate Guinea worm says the disease is close to being wiped out.

The US-based Carter Centre says that only 28 cases of Guinea worm were reported in 2018, compared to the 3.5 million infections recorded in 1986.

If it succeeds, it means Guinea worm would be the third disease to be eradicated, after smallpox and rinderpest.

Guinea worm is a tissue parasite that is rarely fatal, but causes severe pain. When the worm emerges, usually from the feet, it causes an intensely painful build-up of fluids, a blister and an ulcer accompanied by fever, nausea and vomiting.

The World Health Organization, which works alongside the Carter Centre and Unicef against the disease, explains that Guinea worm is eradicable for these reasons:

• Diagnosis is easy and unambiguous (it relies on visual recognition of the emerging worm)
• The intermediate host is not airborne (like a mosquito) but restricted to stagnant water bodies
• Control interventions are simple, cost-effective and relatively easy to implement
• Guinea worm has limited geographical distribution and transmission is seasonal
• There is no known animal reservoir
• Political commitment from governments is available
• Several countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East have successfully eliminated the disease.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has rejected a call from the African Union (AU) for the announcement of the presidential election results to be suspended.

The AU has said it has serious doubts about the integrity of the provisional result which gave victory to Felix Tshisekedi.

Another opposition candidate Martin Fayulu has asked the constitutional court to nullify the result saying he won.

It is clear the AU's call for the election result to be postponed has angered the Congolese government.

A spokesman Lambert Mende said the Constitutional Court was independent and no-one had the right to tell it what todo.

The AU says its chair, the Rwandan president Paul Kagame, and other heads of state will soon head to Kinshasa to help find a way out of the crisis.

Mr Mende said the delegation was welcome but insisted the post election process would remain unchanged.

That suggests the swearing in of Félix Tshisekedi could happen within days if the Constitutional Court upholds his victory.

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• Read: How does Tshisekedi's victory add up?

A Canadian citizen is among the five suspects detained for 30 days in connection with Tuesday's attack on a hotel complex in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

Four men and a woman stood in the dock at the High Court in Nairobi with their heads bowed.

They are the first suspects to appear in connection with the 19-hour siege at the DusitD2 complex in which 21 people died. But no charges were read out to them.

The director of public prosecution asked for more time to carry out investigations he described as "complex and transnational".

Four of the suspects are Kenyan citizens. The fifth is a Canadian-Somali.

Earlier, police told the BBC they had arrested seven people.

A man who was seen in the company of the militants before the attack is understood to be among those detained, but he was not presented in court on Friday.

Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabab said it was behind the attack.

• Read: 'How we survived the siege'

Ghanaian undercover reporter Anas Aremeyaw Anas has told the BBC his team face death threats on a daily basis.

He was speaking after his colleague Ahmed Hussein-Suale was shot dead while driving home, after a politician called for retribution against him.

Mr Hussein-Suale was a member of Tiger Eye Private Investigations, run by Anas, and had investigated corruption in Ghana's football leagues.

Five suspects have appeared in court in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, in connection with Tuesday's deadly attack on a hotel complex in the city.

The Director of Public Prosecution says they are still under investigation, calling the larger context of the attack "complex and transnational".

The suspects were not charged, and they will be held in remand for 30 days.

Twenty-one people died in the 19-hour siege at the luxury compound. Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabab says it was behind the attack.

AFP/EPACopyright: AFP/EPA

Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and youth leader Charles Blé Goudé will remain in jail until 1 February, according to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

That's the date the court has set for the prosecution's appeal against Tuesday's ruling that Mr Gbagbo and Mr Blé Goudé should be acquitted.

Both men had been charged with crimes against humanity in connection with violence following a disputed 2010 election that left 3,000 dead and 500,000 displaced.

During the political stand-off there were bloody clashes and targeted killings in the main city of Abidjan in the south, and several hundred were massacred in the western town of Duekoue.

The prosecution at the ICC in The Hague has failed in previous attempts to build successful cases against Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Brazilian former World Footballer of the Year Rivaldo, 46, has been named as technical director of Moroccan third division side Chabab Mohammedia.

The team's official Facebook page announced the ex-Barcelona and Milan striker will be the team's coach from next season.

The 1980 Moroccan champions are currently top of the third division, halfway through the season.

Mohammedia last played in the Moroccan top flight in 2009.

The club is based 25km (16 miles) from Casablanca and was founded in 1948, making it one the country's oldest clubs.

The club is owned by one of the wealthiest men in the area, Hicham Ait Menna. Mr Menna is in the real estate business and hoping to return the club to some of its former glory.

The most famous player to have played for the team is Ahmed Faras - he was the Moroccan national team's all-time leading scorer with 42 goals, and won the 1975 African Footballer of the Year award

This will not be Rivaldo's first experience of African football - he spent 2012 playing for Angolan side Kabuscorp.

• Read more on the BBC Sport website

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As Egypt becomes the first Arab country to authorise the production and sale of a drug meant to boost the female libido, I've been exploring whether there's a market for it in such a socially conservative country.

"I felt drowsy and dizzy, and my heart was racing."

This is how Leila felt after taking her first pill of the so-called "female Viagra" - chemically known as flibanserin.

The drug was first authorised for use in the US almost three years ago, and is now being produced in Egypt by a local pharmaceutical company.

Leila - not her real name - is a conservative housewife in her mid-30s. She prefers to conceal her identity as, like many women in Egypt, talking about sexual problems and sexual needs is still very much a taboo.

After almost 10 years of marriage, she says she decided to get the drug "out of mere curiosity".

• Read more on the BBC News website

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

The first full assessment of risks to the world's coffee plants shows that 60% of 124 known species are on the verge of extinction.

The vast majority of wild coffee grows in the remote forests of Africa and on the island of Madagascar.

A second study, in Global Change Biology, found that specifically wild Arabica coffee can be classed as threatened under official rankings, when climate change projections are taken into account.

Ethiopia is the home of Arabica coffee, where it grows naturally in upland rainforests.

Its natural population is likely to shrink by up to 50% or more by 2088 because of climate change alone, according to the research.

• Read more on the BBC News website

Out colleagues at BBC Radio 1 and the World Service are trying to get a sense of what it is like to be a teenager at the moment.

So they have interviewed 17-year-olds from all around the world about how they spend their Saturdays.

Joy in Uganda's capital Kampala was kind enough to take us through a typical Saturday for him, which starts at 6am with family prayers, before leaving for school and followed by singing practice.

Watch his day:

Reuters news agency is reporting that police in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, have fired live ammunition at hundreds of people mourning the death of a man killed by the security forces during anti-government demonstrations.

It quotes a witness as saying the 60-year-old protester had died on Friday morning from a gunshot wound sustained on Thursday night.

Reuters says as many as 2,000 mourners gathered at the man's house the Burri district of the capital.

It's the same neighbourhood where a child and a doctor were shot dead during protests on Thursday.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Anti-government demonstrators in Sudan have been holding a sit-in protest through the night outside a hospital in the capital, Khartoum.

Thousands of people packed the streets in the Burri district of the city.

Videos posted on social media show people chanting and demanding the resignation of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

On Thursday, a doctor and a child were shot dead during clashes in Khartoum. Activists say nine other demonstrators were wounded.

There were numerous arrests. UN officials have criticised the authorities' repressive response to the protests, which began over rising bread and fuel prices.

Rights groups say at least 40 people have been killed in the past month.

• Read: Hunger for cash in Sudan