Africa (except North Africa)

PRETORIA, Jan 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — South African Airways (SAA) has announced it is cancelling more flights in a bid to “ensure [it] is running efficient flights”.

In a statement, the troubled airline said it was cancelling dozens of domestic and international flights next month due to “low demand based on current forward bookings for the month of February”.

Earlier this week, it was announced SAA would receive 3.5bn South African rand in emergency funding from the Development Bank of Southern Africa – a government-owned bank.

BENI (DR Congo), Jan 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Up to 24 people were killed Thursday in a fresh attack in DR Congo’s east attributed to the Allied Democratic Forces militia, taking the number of civilians killed over two days to more than 60, officials and a monitor said.

Twenty-four bodies were found at four sites near Oicha in the volatile Beni region, the area’s top administrator Donat Kibwana said.

The Kivu Security Tracker, a joint project of the Congo Research Group and Human Rights Watch put the toll at 19.

HARARE, Jan 31 (NNN-ALLAFRICA) — Zimbabwean Government and the European Union officially launched the €10 million Zimbabwe Economic Partnership Agreement Support Project that is expected to boost small to medium scale enterprises.

The ZEPA project was officially launched by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Deputy Minister David Musabayana who was standing in for Minister Sibusiso Moyo.

ABIDJAN, Jan 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) became the first African country to test a suspected Coronavirus case, when a female student arrived at an airport in the capital with suspicious symptoms.

‘‘The 34-year-old student traveled from Beijing to the Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport in Abidjan on Saturday and was coughing, sneezing and experienced difficulty breathing,’‘ Ivory Coast’s Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene said in statement.

ABUJA, Jan 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered air strikes against bandits, kidnappers and cattle rustlers in Niger state.

On Saturday gunmen killed 11 people and kidnapped four women during door-to-door attacks, reported Sahara Reporters and The Daily Sun.

Buhari described the repeated attacks by the bandits “as a disaster”.

Buhari said the air raids “remain the best approach given the lack of motorised roads in the areas constantly under attack”.

BUJUMBURA, Jan 27 (NNN-AFRICANEWS) — Burundi’s Gen. Evariste Ndayishimiye was on Sunday confirmed as the ruling party’s candidate in the May presidential elections.

The national conference for the ruling CNDD-FDD party in the rural province of Gitega is the latest proof that the country’s president Pierre Nkurunziza will now retire after serving three terms.

Nkurunziza will retire after presiding over a disputed third term that sparked violence and forced hundreds of thousands to flee the tiny central African country.

ADDIS ABABA, Jan 26 (NNN-ENA) – South Sudanese nationals represent the largest refugee population in Ethiopia, totalling 329,123, at the end of 2019, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Ethiopia, which hosts one of the largest refugee population in Africa, along with Uganda and Sudan, is now home to more than 735,000 refugees, the majority of which from neighbouring South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, Kisut Gebregziabher, spokesperson for office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ethiopia, said.

KHARTOUM, Jan 25 (NNN-SUNA) — The Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)/northern sector, on Friday, signed a framework peace agreement.

The deal was signed at the Presidential Palace in Juba, capital of South Sudan, which is mediating between the rival Sudanese parties, according to a statement by Sudan’s sovereign council.

The deal includes items on security arrangements and system of rule, the statement said.

BERLIN, Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Somalia is still ranked the world’s most corrupt country, according to the just released 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).

The index is published annually by Transparency International (TI) and assesses the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 180 countries.

According to TI, the country’s poor rule of law has created room for everything from “petty bribery to high-level political corruption”.

BAMAKO, Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Six soldiers were killed and several were wounded in an overnight attack in central Mali, the army said Thursday, in fresh violence in the war-torn West African state.

The troops came under fire late Wednesday from “unidentified armed men” in Dioungani, an area in central Mali’s volatile Mopti region near the border with Burkina Faso, the army said on Twitter.

Local authorities and inhabitants have blamed the attack on jihadists.