Africa (except North Africa)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Soldiers from Eritrea systematically killed “many hundreds” of people, the large majority men, in a massacre in late November in the Ethiopian city of Axum, Amnesty International says in a new report, echoing the findings of an Associated Press story last week and citing more than 40 witnesses.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The African Union is backing calls for drugmakers to waive some intellectual property rights on COVID-19 medicines and vaccines to speed up their rollout to poor countries, the head of its disease control body said on Thursday.

South Africa and India, which both manufacture drugs and vaccines, made the proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) last year, arguing that intellectual property (IP) rules were hindering the urgent scale-up of vaccine production and provision of medical products to some patients.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Lawyers representing jailed Ethiopian opposition politicians say they are concerned for the lives of their clients, whose hunger strike has gone on for nearly a month and drawn international attention as they protest their treatment by the government.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A crisis over the supply of medical oxygen for coronavirus patients has struck nations in Africa and Latin America, where warnings went unheeded at the start of the pandemic and doctors say the shortage has led to unnecessary deaths.

ABUJA, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian troops killed some Boko Haram militants while retaking a town "lost" to them earlier in the country's northeast region, said a spokesman for the army on Tuesday.

Mohammed Yerima, the army spokesman, told Xinhua that the town of Marte and its surrounding areas in the northern state of Borno were cleared of militants who had laid siege to the region for some days.

KINSHASA, Feb 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Four people have died from Ebola during a new outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where people are resisting measures to contain the disease, officials said.

Since the epidemic’s resurgence this month, “we have already registered six Ebola cases. We have lost four infected people,” Doctor Eugene Syalita, the provincial health minister in North Kivu province in the DRC’s northeast, said.

Syalita said one person died Friday and another on Saturday, while the two others died at the beginning of the month.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine said on Monday he was withdrawing a court case challenging presidential election results that handed victory to incumbent Yoweri Museveni, alleging bias by Supreme Court justices hearing the case.

“We have decided to withdraw from their court,” Bobi Wine told a news conference in the capital Kampala.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Tanzania’s president is finally acknowledging that his country has a coronavirus problem after claiming for months that the disease had been defeated by prayer.

Populist President John Magufuli on Sunday urged citizens of the East African country to take precautions and even wear face masks — but only locally made ones. Over the course of the pandemic he has expressed wariness about foreign-made goods, including COVID-19 vaccines.

NIAMEY (Reuters) - Niger began voting on Sunday in the second round of a presidential election that is expected to usher in the first democratic transition of power since the West African nation gained independence from France in 1960.

Ruling party candidate Mohamed Bazoum is seen by many as the favourite after leading in the first round on Dec. 27 with 39.3% of the vote. He is up against former President Mahamane Ousmane, who scored 17%.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The head of the World Health Organization urged Tanzania on Sunday to share information on its measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, saying the authorities there had repeatedly ignored his requests.

President John Magufuli’s sceptical approach towards COVID-19 has caused alarm among WHO officials. A government spokesman told Reuters on Feb.12 that Tanzania had “controlled” the outbreak, but it stopped reporting new coronavirus infections and deaths in May last year. At the time it had registered 509 cases and 21 deaths.