Africa highlights: Hospital blamed for Ebola hero's death, desperate search for boy in SA mineshaft

Nigerians living in South Africa feel they have been especially targeted in the recent attacks against foreigners. 

Emmeka Uhanna, 47, owns a shop in South Africa's economic hub Johannesburg. He tells the BBC's Pumza Fihlani that he is worried following the recent xenophobic attacks in parts of the city and wants the government to intervene for the sake of all Africans.  

"I've been living in South Africa since 1997, my wife is South African and we have two children, aged 14 and 16.

"My wife is worried about what future our children will have if the xenophobic attacks become the norm. We don't know how to explain the hatred against Nigerians to our families, to our children. 

"I now get calls from home, my family members want to know if we're safe, they see the stories in the news.

"It's important for South Africans to know that not all of us are criminals, the same way not all South Africans are engaged in crime." 

Read full story

BBCCopyright: BBC

Chad has reopened its border with Libya, eight weeks after it closed it in order to stem infiltration by extremist elements, pro-government Alwihda website reports.

The minister of public security and immigration, Ahmat Mahamat Bachir, announced yesterday in Bardai (Tibesti) the opening of the Chad-Libyan border, with Wour as the only entry and exit point, the website reported.

On 6 January, Chadian Prime Minister Padacke Albert Pahimi announced the closure of the Chad land border with Libya over what he termed dangers threatening the entire country and declared the areas near the border to be "military operation zones". 

Chadian President Idriss Deby also recently said: "Intervention by western special forces against Daesh [so-called Islamic State] in Sirte [in Libya] has not resolved the threat, but instead moved it from the Mediterranean coast to the southern region of Koufra, some 200km from Chad, where the terrorists are regrouping."

Continuing instability in Libya has created ungoverned areas that have attracted Islamist militant groups, as well as becoming major corridors for migrants trying to get into Europe. 

Chad and Libya share a common border that is 1,000km (620 miles) long. 

Swaziland's High Commissioner in London Christian Muzi Nkambule presented his credentials to Queen Elizabeth earlier. Here's a photo of the diplomat and his wife during their private audience with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Kenya's top comedian Eric Omondi has shared a video of himself meeting Jimmy Fallon and performing at the US comedian's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. 

Omondi, who is on tour in the US, said on Instagram that his dream had come true : 

Quote Message: Imagine one of your wildest dreams coming true...mine just did...Jimmy Fallon just said 'All the way from KENYA, it's Eric' Still waiting to wake up from this dream."

Imagine one of your wildest dreams coming true...mine just did...Jimmy Fallon just said 'All the way from KENYA, it's Eric' Still waiting to wake up from this dream."

AFPCopyright: AFP

Lesotho's Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili has lost a confidence vote in parliament and may call a snap election, South Africa's state broadcaster reports. 

A number of defections by ruling-coalition lawmakers to the opposition has badly weakened support for Mr Mosisili. 

His Democratic Congress came to power two years ago by uniting with smaller parties against Thomas Thabane's All Basotho Congress. 

Mr Mosisili's political adviser Fako Likoti told Reuters news agency that he would call elections tomorrow: 

Quote Message: He is ready to call for elections tomorrow, and is confident he can win because he has grassroots support."

He is ready to call for elections tomorrow, and is confident he can win because he has grassroots support."

The small landlocked country of 2 million people, which has been hit by several coups since independence from Britain in 1966, appears set for a period of political instability, analysts say. 

AFPCopyright: AFP

The husband of a Liberian nurse named one of Time magazine's people of the year in 2014 has told the BBC he blames her recent death on the hospital where she was treated. 

The nurse, Salome Karwah, was taken to hospital last month after suffering complications from childbirth but her husband, James Harris, said staff were afraid to touch her because she had previously treated Ebola victims and herself caught, and recovered from, the virus.

"I personally went into the emergency ward to bring a wheelchair to take my wife into the operation room," he said.

Mr Harris also said "they had her waiting in a vehicle for three hours - from 9pm to midnight" before she was attended to. 

All this time "a nurse on duty, instead of attending to the emergency, was standing by the front counter busy on Facebook," he said.

Mr Harris said that although his wife had previously had Ebola, all recent tests had come up negative.

The Liberian health ministry has said it will investigate the circumstances leading to Ms Karwah's death including the allegations that nurses failed to attend to her on arrival at the ELWA Hospital.

Time magazine, which had pictured Ms Karwah on its cover in 2014, said she had seemed "invincible" and "tireless" when working with Ebola patients. 

AFPCopyright: AFP

South Africa’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned recent attacks against foreigners, saying South Africans are not xenophobic.

Mr Ramaphosa was responding to questions from MPs in parliament.

He said attacks against foreigners were shameful and that migrants should feel welcome in the country. He also promised to protect them and their property:

Quote Message: We can all agree that the events of the past days are rather sad and these are incidents we should not gloat about.

We can all agree that the events of the past days are rather sad and these are incidents we should not gloat about.

Quote Message: “What is clear is that South Africans are not xenophobic. We are a people who are not xenophobic. We don’t hate foreigners. In fact we’ve opened our arms... to people from other countries just like they opened their arms to us when we were pushed into exile. And where there’s been crime, we are saying the police must investigate that. It’s not saying that foreigners are criminals

“What is clear is that South Africans are not xenophobic. We are a people who are not xenophobic. We don’t hate foreigners. In fact we’ve opened our arms... to people from other countries just like they opened their arms to us when we were pushed into exile. And where there’s been crime, we are saying the police must investigate that. It’s not saying that foreigners are criminals

Quote Message: So we will continue as government wanting to protect the lives and property and interest of people from other nations just as we expect their governments to protect the lives, property and interests of South Africans who are in other countries.

So we will continue as government wanting to protect the lives and property and interest of people from other nations just as we expect their governments to protect the lives, property and interests of South Africans who are in other countries.

His comments came hours after South Africa's home affairs office confirmed that groups of undocumented migrants from countries including Nigeria and Somalia had been deported in the past few days. 

See earlier post.

BBCCopyright: BBC

Weeks of heavy rain in Zimbabwe have led to more than 1,000 people having to be rescued from flood waters. 

More heavy rain and thunderstorms are expected, as well as across Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique in the coming days with the risk of further floods and landslides.

Meanwhile, in the southern Indian Ocean, the conditions remain favourable for the development of a tropical cyclone (see yellow circle) that could hit Reunion, Mauritius and perhaps Madagascar.

The heavy rains have made driving in Zimbabwe especially dangerous, as standing water hides some of the potholes on the road. 

Watch the BBC's Shingai Nyoka's report from the capital, Harare:

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Chelsea wing-back Victor Moses has signed a two-year contract extension to commit himself to Stamford Bridge until 2021.

The Nigerian, 26, who spent the previous three seasons on loan at Liverpool, Stoke and West Ham respectively, has become a regular under manager Antonio Conte.

Read the full story from BBC Sport.

The Mother Africa circus, which is on a world tour, has arrived in the UK capital, London. The show combines spectacular acrobatic stunts with traditional African music and dance. 

Two of the performers have been speaking to the BBC.

Rene Redzepi, InstagramCopyright: Rene Redzepi, Instagram

A Gambian kitchen porter has been made a co-owner of the four-time winner of the world's best restaurant.

Ali Sonko, 62, is now a partner at Noma, the restaurant in Danish capital Copenhagen where he has been working since it opened.

Mr Sonko was unveiled as one of three new partners, alongside two of its managers.

The two-Michelin starred restaurant closed its doors after 14 years at the current location, and will reopen in December as an "urban farm".

Read the full story here.

AFPCopyright: AFP

A software engineer from Lagos, Nigeria, is claiming that he was made to sit a written test by US airport immigration officers because they weren't convinced he was telling the truth about his skills.

According to social networking site  LinkedIn , Celestine Omin, 28, landed in New York's JFK airport last Sunday after a 24-hour flight from Nigeria.

Mr Omin is employed by  Andela , a tech start-up with offices in New York, Lagos, Nairobi and San Francisco.

The firm says it recruits "the most talented developers on the African continent" and connects them with tech employers in the US for potential job vacancies. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg  visited  Andela's office in Lagos last year.

Nigeria is not one of the  seven countries  included in US President Donald Trump's temporary immigration pause. However, the west African country has been struggling with the threat of  terrorism  in recent times, in particular from the militant Islamist group  Boko Haram .  

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Human Rights Watch has called on the Angolan authorities to investigate an incident recorded on video on 24 February showing security forces attacking protesters at the First of May Square in the capital, Luanda.

The footage shot by a resident in a nearby building shows police hitting protesters with batons and using dogs to disperse them.   

Human Rights Watch said  15 people had gathered for a peaceful demonstration calling for the removal of Bornito de Sousa, a government minster, from a post giving him control of the voter registration process. 

The demonstrators complained that Mr de Sousa could use his role to influence parliamentary elections in August in favour of the governing MPLA party. 

Daniel Bekele , senior Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, called for accountability: 

Quote Message: The government needs to investigate the police crackdown on protesters and hold those responsible to account.”

The government needs to investigate the police crackdown on protesters and hold those responsible to account.”

Today is the first day of Lent, a period when Christians remember Jesus Christ's sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for 40 days. 

Christians around the world often mark the period by symbolic fasting - giving up something they might normally eat or drink regularly.

Tell us what you will be giving up for 40 days. 

AFPCopyright: AFP

State-employed nurses in Zimbabwe have begun an indefinite strike over wages.

Their main demand is that the government pay out 2016 bonuses.

Last week army doctors were brought in to manage a potential health crisis as a result of an ongoing doctors’ strike.

Zimbabwe’s medical professionals are some of the worst paid in the region and their salaries are often paid late.

Hospitals are scaling back emergency services as a wave of discontent spreads among doctors and nurses.

In the capital, reports say many nurses didn’t show up for work at Harare and Chitungwiza  central hospitals. A government representative couldn’t confirm this but said two major hospitals outside Harare had been badly affected.

Since last week, hospitals have been turning away the sick and patients have been discharged early following a doctors' strike over allowances and job security. There is a concern that the army personnel, brought in as a stop-gap, will not be able to cope without nurses.

A number of residents in Kenya's Baringo county, in the Rift Valley, are reported to have fled to neighbouring counties as police step up an operation against bandits.

Privately-owned newspaper  Daily Nation reports that residents fear the police operation could be heavy-handed and draw in innocent people.

Armed herders from the Pokot and Tugen ethnic groups have been blamed for being behind killings of 10 people and the displacement of thousands. 

Schools in the region remain closed and it is unclear when they will reopen. 

The area police boss Robinson Ndiwa said the operation was only targeting criminals: 

Quote Message: We will follow them to their hideouts and we urge the locals not to fear because we are not targeting a community but criminals

We will follow them to their hideouts and we urge the locals not to fear because we are not targeting a community but criminals

AFPCopyright: AFP

Dozens of students in Chad who were arrested at a protest against the minister of higher education have been sentenced to one-month jail terms for vandalism, BBC Afrique reports  (in French). 

Their trial, which lasted just one day, took place under heavy security. As well as the vandalism charge, they were accused of contempt for public authority and violent behaviour. 

A total of 71 were arrested on Saturday; three were acquitted for lack of evidence. 

The national student union says classes on campuses will be boycotted until the 68 prisoners are released. 

Students have staged several protests in recent months, partly in response to government moves to cut student grants.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Nigerian former Fifa executive Amos Adamu has been banned from all football activities for two years by the sport's world governing body.

Fifa said "the sanction is effective from 28 February 2017".

Adamu, who was  previously banned for three years from October 2010 , has been punished for violating three articles of its Fifa's Code of Ethics.

Read more from BBC Sport here .

South Africa's home affairs office has confirmed reports that a number of Nigerian nationals have been deported.

Nigerian media has been reporting that 97 nationals accused of committing various offences were deported on Monday. 

Home Affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete told me that hundreds of undocumented people were deported, the majority of them from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. 

Others included citizens from Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Somalia, “so it would be unfair to single out Nigerians”, he said.

It takes somewhere between 60 to 90 days to process deportations – this means that the people who were deported this week began their process last year and therefore couldn’t be linked to current events.

South Africa has experienced several protests against foreigners and looting of shops owned by migrants. 

South Africa deports about 30,000 people every year.