DR #Congo mine collapse kills at least 32: official, The bridge came down Saturday onto a flooded zone at the mine in Lualaba province, Roy Kaumba Mayonde, the provincial interior minister, told reporters. He said 32 bodies had been recovered and more were being searched for.

The DRC produces more than 70 per cent of the world supply of cobalt, which is essential for batteries used in electric cars, many laptop computers and mobile phones.

More than 200,000 people are estimated to be working in giant illegal cobalt mines in the giant central African country.

Local authorities said the bridge collapsed at the Kalando mine, about 42 kilometres (26 miles) southeast of the Lualaba provincial capital, Kolwezi.

“Despite a formal ban on access to the site because of the heavy rain and the risk of a landslide, wildcat miners forced their way into the quarry,” said Mayonde.

He said that miners rushing across the makeshift bridge, built to get across a flooded trench, made it collapse.

A report by the SAEMAPE government agency which monitors and helps mining co-operatives said that the presence of soldiers at the Kalando mine had caused a panic.

The report said the mine had been at the heart of a longstanding dispute between the wildcat miners, a cooperative that was meant to organize digging there and the site’s legal operators, who were said to have Chinese involvement.

The miners who fell “piled on top of each other causing the deaths and injuries”, the report said.

Images sent to AFP by the provincial office of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) showed miners digging out bodies from the trench, with at least 17 bodies laid out on the ground nearby.

CNDH provincial coordinator Arthur Kabulo told AFP that more than 10,000 wildcat miners operated at Kalando. Provincial authorities suspended operations at the site on Sunday.

Accusations over the use of child labour, dangerous conditions and corruption have long cast a shadow over the DRC’s cobalt mining industry.

The DRC’s mineral wealth has also been at the heart of a conflict that has ravaged the country’s east for more than three decades.

#Islamic State-backed rebels kill 17 in eastern Congo hospital attack.

The attack by the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, took place in the village of Byambwe, in the Lubero territory of North Kivu province on Friday night, Col. Alain Kiwewa, the local administrator, told The Associated Press.

“Women who were breastfeeding were brutally slaughtered and found with their throats slit in their hospital beds,” Kiwewa said, adding that 11 women and six men were killed.

The rebels also attacked other villages, said Samuel Kakule Kagheni, a civil society leader in the Manzya area, which includes Byambwe, but could not confirm the number of casualties there.

Armed groups have carried out several deadly attacks in eastern Congo, including the ADF and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. The ADF, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2019, operates along the border with Uganda and often targets civilians.

In August, ADF fighters killed at least 52 people during several attacks in the same week, according to the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo.

The group also killed nearly 40 people in Ituri province in July, when it stormed a Catholic church during a vigil and opened fire on worshippers, including many women and children.

The ADF was formed by disparate small groups in Uganda in the late 1990s following discontent with President Yoweri Museveni. In 2002, following Ugandan military strikes, the group moved to neighbouring Congo and has been blamed for the killings of thousands of civilians.

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Justin Kabumba, The Associated Press

#Britain and South Africa have handed back to Ghana more than 130 gold and bronze artefacts taken between the 1870s and early 20th century, the West #African state’s Asante king announced.

#Senegal’s president and the political party he belongs to have issued conflicting statements over the leadership of the ruling coalition, a clear sign of dissension among top leaders amid drawn-out talks with the International Monetary Fund.

Sudan relief operations are ‘on the brink of collapse,’ UN migration agency warns.

“Despite the rising need, humanitarian operations are now on the brink of collapse,” the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement. It added: “Warehouses are nearly empty, aid convoys face significant insecurity, and access restrictions continue to prevent the delivery of sufficient aid.”

The IOM said more funding is needed to ease the humanitarian impact of the war between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The agency warned of “an even greater catastrophe” if its appeal went unheeded.

“Our teams are responding, but insecurity and depleted supplies mean we are only reaching a fraction of those in need,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said in a statement.

The RSF’s recent capture of North Darfur’s capital, el-Fasher, left hundreds dead and forced tens of thousands of people to flee reported atrocities by the paramilitary force, according to aid groups and UN officials. The IOM said nearly 9O,000 people have left el-Fasher and surrounding villages, undertaking a perilous journey through unsafe routes where they have no access to food, water or medical assistance.

Tens of thousands have arrived at overcrowded displacement camps in Tawila, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from el-Fasher. In the camps, the displaced find themselves in barren areas with few tents and insufficient food and medical supplies.

#Lebanese bar owner killed by Russian mercenary in #Mali. The Russian had spent time last Wednesday to Thursday night in the bar in the capital’s Badalabougou district alongside other mercenaries, before firing three shots at point-blank range at the owner.

The exact circumstances were not immediately clear, with a member of the civil protection service telling AFP it occurred after the Russian was told to leave.

“When our teams arrived on the scene, the wounded man had already lost a lot of blood,” the civil protection service member said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

The victim was taken to hospital where he died on Thursday.

“He ultimately died despite attempts to remove the bullets from his skull,” a hospital source told AFP.

The allied Malian army and Africa Corps mercenaries are regularly accused of committing atrocities against civilians.

A leader of the Lebanese community in Mali told AFP that “not a week goes by without atrocities” committed by the mercenaries, alleging that Malian authorities were trying to cover up the affair.

After Mali turned its back on its former colonial ruler France, it drew closer to Russia and its Wagner security group, which later was replaced by Africa Corps, in its fight against jihadists.

Hundreds charged with treason in #Tanzania as authorities hunt key opposition figures after election.

In addition to dozens criminally charged a day earlier in Dar es Salaam, dozens more face similar treason charges elsewhere in the East African nation, according to numerous charge sheets that became publicly available Saturday.

Wanted suspects include Josephat Gwajima, an influential preacher who had his church deregistered earlier this year after he criticized the government over rights abuses.

Police also issued arrest warrants for some of the top opposition officials who hadn’t yet been jailed. They include Brenda Rupia, communications director for the Chadema opposition group, as well as John Mnyika, its secretary-general.

Chadema is Tanzania’s leading opposition party. Its leader, Tundu Lissu, has been jailed for several months and also faces treason charges after he urged electoral reforms before voting on Oct. 29.

Authorities face questions over the death toll after security forces tried to quell riots and opposition protests before and after the vote. Chadema has claimed that more than 1,000 people were killed and that security forces were trying to hide the scale of the deaths by secretly disposing of the bodies. The Catholic Church in Tanzania has said that hundreds were likely killed.

But some believe that the death toll could actually be much higher. The Kenya Human Rights Commission, a watchdog group in the neighboring country, asserted in a statement on Friday that 3,000 people have been killed by Tanzania’s security forces, with thousands still missing.

“Amidst the ongoing attempted cover-up, facilitated by the continued internet blackout and bandwidth restrictions, this number could be thousands below the actual death toll,” the statement said.

Pictorial evidence in the rights group’s possession shows many victims “bore head and chest gunshot wounds, leaving no doubt these were targeted killings, not crowd-control actions,” it said.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who automatically took office as vice president in 2021 after the death of her predecessor, took more than 97% of the vote, according to an official tally. She faced 16 candidates from smaller parties after Lissu and Luhaga Mpina, of the ACT-Wazalendo party, were barred from running.

Rights groups described a climate of repression before voting. There were enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings, according to Amnesty International and others. Tanzania’s government denies the allegations.

The African Union said this week that its observers had concluded that the election “did not comply with AU principles, normative frameworks, and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections.”

AU observers reported ballot stuffing at several polling stations, and cases where voters were issued multiple ballots. The environment surrounding the election was “not conducive to peaceful conduct and acceptance of electoral outcomes,” the statement said.

Pirates boarded the Hellas Aphrodite, a Malta-flagged vessel carrying gasoline, as it was headed from India to South #Africa. The EU’s naval force said one of its vessels was near the incident and closing in.

#Trump says U.S. to boycott #G20 in South Africa, repeating allegations about treatment of white #farmers.

Trump had already announced he would not attend the annual summit for heads of state from the globe’s leading and emerging economies. U.S. Vice President JD Vance had been scheduled to attend in Trump’s place, but a person familiar with Vance’s plans who was granted anonymity to talk about his schedule said Vance would no longer travel there for the summit.

“It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” Trump said on his social media site.

In his post, Trump cited “abuses” of Afrikaners, including violence and death as well as confiscation of their land and farms.

The Trump administration has long accused the South African government of allowing minority white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked.

But the government of South Africa has said it is surprised by the accusations of discrimination, because white people in the country generally have a much higher standard of living than its Black residents, more than three decades after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.

The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said he’s told Trump that information about the alleged discrimination and persecution of Afrikaners is “completely false.”

Nonetheless, the administration has kept up its criticisms of the South African government. Earlier this week during an economic speech in Miami, Trump said South Africa should be thrown out of the Group of 20.

Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G20 meeting for foreign ministers because its agenda focused on diversity, inclusion and climate change efforts.

Seung Min Kim And Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press

‘Everyone abandoned us’: Sudanese-Canadians plea for help as crisis in Sudan spirals ‘out of control’.

His home in Markham, On., is more than 10,000 kilometres from Sudan, but Ashraf Ahmed’s thoughts are almost always on his home country.

“The number of killed people, displaced (people) make the war in Sudan the biggest tragedy in recent history,” he says.

Ahmed is one of many Sudanese-Canadians worried about loved ones stuck in the middle of a more than two-year long conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and left nearly 25 million facing acute hunger, according to the United Nations.

“I have six or seven uncles. I have 20-something cousins. All of them, no exceptions are displaced within the country, within Sudan,” he says. His parents and in-laws were all able to escape Sudan but are stuck in Saudi Arabia as they wait for visas to travel to Canada, a process that has taken more than two years. His mother-in-law passed away last year.

“Her grandchildren, my children were not able to see her,” Ahmed says.

The war between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in 2023 and has escalated dramatically over the last week with the RSF taking control of the city of El Fasher in North Darfur.

Tens of thousands of people were forced to flee the city on foot, with survivors describing scenes of horror: fighters going house-to-house shooting civilians, women being raped and hundreds killed inside a hospital.

“We can see blood from the satellite images,” says Sadia Araa, a pharmacy technician who lives in Ottawa and is originally from El Fasher. In addition to showing blood in the sand, satellite images have also shown evidence that RSF fighters may be digging mass graves.