Africa (except North Africa)

KIGALI, July 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Rwanda has received a consignment of Covid-19 vaccines and medical kits from the United Arab Emirates government.

The kits that were received on Saturday consisted Covid-19 vaccines, medical beds, personal protective equipment, coveralls and ventilators.

Commenting about the donation, Dr Daniel Ngamije, the Minister of Health said that the medical donation is expected to speed up the Covid-19 pandemic fight.

DOUALA, July 24 (Reuters) - At least six Cameroonian soldiers were killed and four wounded during an attack by Islamist insurgents on an army outpost in the far north of the country, state broadcaster CRTV said on Saturday.

The attack is the deadliest in recent months in northern Cameroon, which alongside neighbouring Nigeria and Chad, has been battling the Boko Haram militant group for years and, more recently, militants linked to Islamic State.

KADUNA, Nigeria, July 25 (Reuters) - Kidnappers who raided a boarding school in northern Nigeria earlier this month released 28 children on Sunday but another 81 remain in captivity, according to a pastor involved in the negotiations for their release.

The attack on the Bethel Baptist High School in the state of Kaduna was the 10th mass school kidnapping since December in northwest Nigeria carried out by Islamist militants and more recently, criminal gangs.

BENI (DR Congo), July 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Suspected members of a militia shot and killed 16 people as they were returning home from a weekly market in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, local and medical sources said Friday. 

The dead from the ambush on Thursday evening included six women and a child, all of whom were shot, Jerome Munyambethe, head of the hospital in the town of Oicha, said.

“We have 16 bodies in the hospital morgue,” town mayor Nicolas Kikuku said.

He said another nine wounded were being treated at the hospital.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Thousands of Eritrean refugees are increasingly caught in the middle of the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where witnesses and U.N. officials say forces have attacked their camps, abducted or killed some of the residents, and stolen their food and possessions.

The refugees are among the most vulnerable groups in the Tigray conflict, which broke out in November between the region’s forces and Ethiopian federal troops. It has left thousands of people dead.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — When mother-of-three Amanda Wood heard that hundreds of coronavirus shots were available for teens, only one thing prevented her from racing to the vaccination site at a Toronto high school — her 13-year-old daughter’s fear of needles.

Wood told Lola: If you get the vaccine you’ll be able to see your friends again. You’ll be able to play sports. And enticed by the promise of resuming a normal, teen life, Lola agreed.

In Zimbabwe, more than 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) and a world away from Canada, immunity is harder to obtain.

LAGOS, July 21 (Reuters) - Police and government authorities have secured the release of 100 people, including women, children and nursing mothers, who were kidnapped from their village in northwestern Nigeria over a month ago, a local police spokesperson said.

Nigeria is battling an increase in armed robberies and kidnappings for ransom, mainly in northwestern states, where thinly deployed security forces have struggled to contain the rise of armed gangs, commonly referred to as bandits.

NAIROBI, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan civil aviation authority said Wednesday it has launched investigations into a plane which crash-landed in a military base in southern Somalia with 45 passengers onboard.

"It was near the Kenya-Somalia border at Elwak airstrip and we are investigating it. No injuries reported so far," the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) Director General Gilbert Kibe said on the phone.

Kibe confirmed the incident involving Skyward Express plane and added that investigations will establish how the incident happened.

NAIROBI, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan civil aviation authority said Wednesday it has launched investigations into a plane which crash-landed in a military base in southern Somalia with 45 passengers onboard.

"It was near the Kenya-Somalia border at Elwak airstrip and we are investigating it. No injuries reported so far," the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) Director General Gilbert Kibe said on the phone.

Kibe confirmed the incident involving Skyward Express plane and added that investigations will establish how the incident happened.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A South African firm will begin producing the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, the first time that the shot will be produced in Africa, Pfizer announced Wednesday.

The Biovac Institute based in Cape Town will manufacture the vaccine for distribution across Africa, in a move that should help address the continent’s desperate need for more vaccine doses amid a recent surge of cases.