ADF

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Asseta Rouamba was one of thousands fleeing extremist violence in Burkina Faso’s troubled north when her daughter contracted malaria, putting the pair in an even more desperate situation. “We are exposed. In addition to the precariousness of our shelter, there are food and health difficulties,” the 74-year-old said inside a white tent at a health center outside the northeastern city of Kaya. “This center has welcomed us with free care, which has been a huge relief.” Kaya, the capital of the Centre-Nord region, has been overwhelmed with an influx of people forced to flee their homes by a…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A Tunisian startup is developing a 3D-printed bionic hand, hoping the affordable and solar-powered prosthetic will help amputees and other disabled people across Africa. Unlike traditional devices, the artificial hand can be customized for children who otherwise would require an expensive series of resized models as they grow. The company Cure Bionics also has plans to develop a video-gamelike virtual reality system that helps youngsters learn how to use the artificial hand through physical therapy. Mohamed Dhaouafi, the 28-year-old founder and CEO of Cure Bionics, designed his first prototype while still an engineering student in his home city…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE About 70 armed groups have agreed to a cease-fire in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC’s) South Kivu province, a flashpoint in the country’s troubled east. “All the armed groups of South Kivu agree to a cessation of hostilities and to instruct their respective members,” read a statement issued after a meeting in Murhesa near the provincial capital, Bukavu. The three-day meeting, attended by DRC Deputy Defence Minister Sylvain Mutombo, was co-organized by U.S. conflict-resolution group Search for Common Ground. A similar meeting was held in December 2019 at the same venue, when 32 local armed groups…

ADF STAFF Sudan and South Sudan have signed a joint defense and military cooperation agreement, the latest indication of improved relations between the two countries. The deal will allow the countries to work together on issues such as border security and countertrafficking.  South Sudanese Defence Minister Angelina Teny and Sudanese Defense Minister Ibrahim Yassin signed the deal on October 29, 2020, in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. It outlines a plan to pursue joint training, information exchanges, promotion of peace, working on disaster response and combating cross-border crimes.  “The two heads of state are the ones leading these efforts,” Teny said, referencing…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Troops from Niger have freed 11 villagers, four of them children, who had been seized by Boko Haram extremists and taken across the border into Nigeria. “The hostages were freed by our troops on the Nigerian side of Lake Chad, near a Boko Haram base,” said Yahaya Godi, secretary of the Diffa region governorate in southeast Niger. “There are 11 people, including three women and four children, two of them babies, who were seized by the Boko Haram terrorist group.” The abductions took place August 11 and 12, 2020, in two villages in Gueskerou, a district on the…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Plans to allow industrial logging in one of Central Africa’s last intact forests have been halted in a move welcomed by environmentalists. Ebo forest in southwestern Cameroon is home to 40 Banen communities and numerous endangered wildlife species, including Western gorillas, chimpanzees, forest elephants, grey parrots and large frogs.  Cameroon’s government formally announced it was canceling a previous decree that would have allowed timber extraction across nearly half of the 150,000-hectare forest. The conservation group Greenpeace responded, saying the suspension of logging operations must be the first step toward protecting Ebo’s residents. It has vowed to…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS A little-known mammal related to an elephant but as small as a mouse has been rediscovered after 50 years of obscurity. The last scientific record of the “lost species” of Somali elephant shrew was in the 1970s, despite local sightings. The creature was found alive and well in Djibouti during a scientific expedition. Elephant shrews, or sengis, are neither elephants nor shrews, but are related to aardvarks, elephants and manatees. They have distinctive trunk-like noses, which they use to feast on insects. There are 20 species of sengis in the world, and the Somali sengi is…

VOICE OF AMERICA Students in Malawi were out of school for six months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although most were able to study from home with internet or radio lessons, many in remote villages were left out.  Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), an international development organization, and partner One Billion helped bridge the gap by distributing 1,000 solar-powered tablet computers with programmed lessons to rural primary school students. All content is in Malawi’s main language, Chichewa, and helps students improve reading, writing and math.  Parents say the donation eased education worries during the school closure.  “I lost hope, but with…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Quick adaptation has enabled Ethiopian Airlines to pull through tough COVID-19 restrictions and “saved the airline,” its CEO said. CEO Tewolde GebreMariam said the airline maximized freight operations due to air travel restrictions. Despite losing $1 billion and having 850 of its employees contract COVID-19, the company reported a $44 million profit for the first half of 2020 and has not defaulted on its loan repayments, the CEO said. The company also has avoided laying off full-time employees or seeking debt restructuring, Tewolde said. The airline, which is the largest in Africa, responded to a 90% drop in…

WORLD BANK Nestled in the dense rainforest of the Kafa Biosphere Reserve in southwest Ethiopia are thousands of genetic variants of coffee, an important seed bank of wild arabica that faces extinction. Preserving Ethiopia’s prized arabica coffee is key not only for coffee drinkers worldwide, but also for the estimated 15 million people in Ethiopia whose livelihoods depend on it. Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee producer and the world’s fifth-largest exporter. In 2018, Ethiopia’s coffee production was 7.5 million 60-kilogram bags, according to the International Coffee Organization. The Kafa zone, about 460 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, is considered the…