That's it from us today. Listen to the Africa Today podcast and keep up-to-date with stories from across the continent on the BBC News website.

We leave you with this picture of sand sculptures of Africa at an exhibition that is opening to the public in Germany next month. Twenty international artists have used around 1,100 tonnes of sand to make their artistic visions of Africa.

Image source, EPA

The latest WHO Ebola figures are out, external showing 33 new confirmed cases in the week up to 26 April - the majority in Forecariah in Guinea and Kambia in Sierra Leone.

Liberia will be declared free of Ebola transmission on 9 May, if it continues to report no new cases.

Image source, AFP

After a study showed "rural African food" may reduce the risk of bowel cancer we asked what is usually on your plate, external.

Evans Madu Tobe says it is bitter leaf soup and fufu, while Aluoch Aby says ugali and fish.

Michael Nii Lante Lamptey thinks the results of the survey (see earlier post) have more to do with "the fact that in Africa most of what we consume isn't processed".

France has launched a preliminary investigation into allegations that French troops sexually abused children in Central African Republic after receiving a UN report, according to the Reuters news agency.

The UK's Guardian newspaper, external says a senior UN aid worker has been suspended for disclosing to French prosecutors the UN report.

It details the alleged rape and sodomy of starving and homeless young boys by French peacekeepers who were supposed to be protecting them at a centre for internally displaced people in Bangui, capital of CAR, the Guardian reports.

Two African leaders have set fire to five tonnes of seized ivory in Congo-Brazzaville as a conference on the tackling illegal exploitation of wildlife opened.

Chad's President Idriss Deby can be seen wielding a massive torch nearest to the camera. His Congolese counterpart, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, holds the other one.

Image source, AFP

A court in Egypt has sentenced 69 Islamists to life in prison for setting fire to a church in a town near the capital, Cairo.

A French prosecutor is carrying out preliminary investigations into allegations of child abuse by French soldiers based in Central African Republic, judicial sources say.

BBC Bamako reporter Alex Duval Smith has just snapped some photos of caricaturist Drissa Konate painting the portraits of famous Malian musicians on the outside wall of Studio Bogolan - one of the Malian capital's most famous recording studios, which has not functioned for two years.

He is among a group of artists who want to restart activities at the legendary studio and they are currently sprucing up the premises at their own expense in the hope of attracting financial support to get it back on its feet, our correspondent says.

Elyse, an anti-third term protester in Burundi, has been complaining about the police's handling of the demonstrations and commending the army.

"If the soldiers weren't here with us, the police would have already started firing at us," he told the BBC's Maud Jullien.

Police road blocks meant that neighbourhoods were going hungry.

"No-one can come in to bring food, so the protesters are starting to lose motivation. This is part of the government strategy. Telephone credit is no longer available here, so we can't communicate and social networks have been cut off.

"We would like to at least be able to talk, why doesn't the government come here to talk with people?"

Abdourahmane Dia
BBC Afrique

Togo's main opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre has declared himself president after rejecting official results from Saturday's elections as fraudulent.

Image source, AFP

He called on people to "take their destiny into their own hands".

Provisional results released by the electoral commission showed that Mr Fabre obtained 35% of the vote compared with President Faure Gnassingbe's 59% (see earlier post for more details).

Residents of the Kenyan town of Narok struggle to rescue a car stuck in the mud after flash floods:

Most of the nearly 300 women and children freed in north-eastern Nigeria during a military offensive in Sambisa forest are likely to have been residents of the nature reserve, a local senator has told the BBC's Focus on Africa radio programme.

"These are farming communities and most of those left behind in villages are the elderly ones, women and girls because the youth and the strong ones normally have to run or otherwise they will be conscripted into the Boko Haram insurgent group," Ali Ndume said.

Image source, Reuters

He said the Sambisa forest reserve is vast so it was difficult to know how many people were still living in territory controlled by the Islamist militants.

Six of those freed were not from Sambisa and had been transferred to Maiduguri city to a camp for those who lost their homes because of the insurgency, Mr Ndume said.

On Focus on Africa on BBC World TV at 17:30 GMT, you can watch a report on plus-sized models in Kenya and whether the modelling industry will ever embrace them fully.

Will the modelling industry ever fully embrace plus-sized women? We'd like to hear what you think - use the hashtag #BBCAfrica.

Nigerians have been reacting on BBC Africa Facebook, external to the execution of three of their countrymen in Indonesia on drug-smuggling charges.

Olaleye says: "I will never blame the Indonesian government. Greed and making a fast buck syndrome has been our major problem in Nigeria."

Sadiq is more sympathetic: "Even though they got what they deserved, I feel sad for them and their families. Whatever their crimes they are still our countrymen. I pray for their souls and their families."

The Mozambique news agency tweets, external that the country will boycott the South African tourism fair due to start in Durban on 9 May.

It is the latest sign of the backlash South Africa is facing over the recent attacks on foreigners, mostly from other African states.

Ivory Coast footballer Serge Aurier has signed a four-year deal to stay at French side Paris St-Germain.

Image source, Getty Images

The 22-year-old defender, who joined on loan from Ligue 1 rivals Toulouse in July 2014, is believed to have cost the club about 10m euros (£7.2m; $11m).

Military sources in Nigeria have told the BBC that the women and girls rescued from the north-eastern Sambisa forest are largely from Damboa and Gumsuri in Borno state, and Madagali in Adamawa state.

The sources said that each day more Islamist militants were fleeing from the vast forest hideout.

However, a resident of Gwoza, Boko Haram's former headquarters, told the BBC many of the fighters are now moving back towards Gwoza and the nearby Mandara mountains.

Image source, EPA

BBC Monitoring

The story of the release of some 200 girls held captive by Boko Haram dominates most papers today in Nigeria.

Image source, Reuters

The row between President-elect Muhammadu Buhari and the privately owned media group Africa Independent Television (AIT) is also covered by several papers. Relations soured during the election campaign after the TV station ran a controversial documentary about him.

AIT owner Raymond Dokpesi told the Premium Times, external that Gen Buhari's attempt to bar the station from covering his activities was an "attempt by the former military head of state to bring back the era of Decree Four", which forbade any journalist during his rule in the 1980s from reporting information considered embarrassing to government officials.

However Gen Buhari's All Progressives Congress (APC) party has overruled the ban, the Daily Independent reports, external.

"Libya doesn't function as a country now. But at trafficking, it is untouchable," says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in his feature about people smugglers in the North African country.

He says behind the multi-billion dollar trade is a complex criminal and tribal network - and almost nothing is being done to stop it.

Brian Hungwe
BBC Africa, Harare

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma is in Harare for a summit of regional leaders - his first visit abroad since the xenophobic attacks that killed at least seven people and caused a backlash in other African states.

Mr Zuma is expected to deliver an address on the attacks, although the summit has been called by the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) to discuss industrialisation.

His remarks back home that neighbouring states should take the blame for the influx of immigrants is likely to spark a debate during the closed-door session.