More on the suicide attack in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri: The National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) has tweeted these photos from the scene of the attack at a fuel depot.

Chris Ewokor
BBC Africa, Abuja

Image source, AFP

Three suspected suicide bombers, two of them women, have been killed after one of them detonated an explosive device in Maiduguri, in north-east Nigeria. 

Security sources say the attackers approached a petroleum depot in Samboa Road. One of the women detonated explosives strapped to her body, causing further explosions as two stationary fuel tankers caught fire. 

A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency in Maiduguri, Abdulkadir Ibrahim, said the fire had been put out and the bodies of the three attackers removed. There were no other casualties reported.

Maiduguri was once a stronghold of militant Islamist group Boko Haram but has become more peaceful since the Nigerian military stepped up operations against the insurgents. 

However, the Islamists still carry out random attacks in the area. 

The attack comes days before a planned visit by the UN Security Council as part of a four-nation tour of countries in the Lake Chad Basin devastated by the seven-year insurgency.   

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo makes history with his presidential library - the first of its kind in Africa.

The former leader gave the BBC's Martin Patience a tour.

Image source, AFP

The main opposition alliance in the Democratic Republic of Congo has named the son of its late leader Etienne Tshisekedi to succeed him. 

Felix Tshisekedi will be president of the nine-party grouping, which opposes President Joseph Kabila.

His appointment was announced despite the objections of at least two groups in the alliance.

The other key post decided was that of president of the bloc's political bureau, which went to former Kabila ally Pierre Lumbi.

Long-time opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi had led the alliance in last December's negotiations over the future of the presidency.

Under the transition deal agreed, Mr Kabila will step down after elections, which must take place this year. His second term in office officially ended last December.

Mr Tshisekedi's death last month sparked clashes between his supporters and the security forces in Kinshasa and threw the opposition into turmoil.

Image source, Eric Bedin

Rare Ethiopian wolves are beginning to recover after three tough years, with the births of 60 pups in their stronghold in the Bale Mountains, conservationists say.

They were born to wolf packs in the Web Valley, Sanetti Plateau and Morebawa in the mountains of southern Ethiopia.

According to the Born Free Foundation, the wolves are Africa’s most threatened carnivore and the world’s rarest dog family.

There are fewer than 500 Ethiopian wolves remaining in the world in a handful of mountain enclaves, of which the Bale Mountains is the largest.

They are threatened by loss of habitat, breeding with domestic dogs and the spread of lethal diseases.

Nearly all wolf packs have bred successfully recently and some have “split”, increasing the number of families and breeding pairs, the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme said.

Southern Africa has suffered extensively from a widespread drought in recent years, but in the last few months a new threat to the region's agriculture has emerged - a plague of "armyworms".

Zambia is one of the countries most affected, with the armyworms devastating maize crops and threatening farmers' livelihoods.

Watch Kennedy Gondwe's report:

Read more:  Why are armyworms attacking Africa's crops?

Tomi Oladipo
BBC Monitoring's Africa security correspondent

Image source, AFP

The leader of the Mali-based jihadist group Ansar Dine has announced a merger with two other groups linked with al-Qaeda. 

Iyad Ag Ghali appeared in a video alongside four other men including leaders of al-Mourabitoun, led by Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), as well as the leader of Mali's ethic Fulani Macina Brigade, Amadou Kouffa. 

The new alliance, to be known as Jam'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims), will be led by Ag Ghali. 

The groups have been responsible for attacks mainly in Mali but also elsewhere in the Sahel and Sahara (sometimes even claiming the same attacks). 

They were already allied before now but this move, apart from consolidating their violent campaigns against the local authorities (and international partners), would also be a major propaganda tool.

Read more:

• Iyad ag Ghali - Mali's Islamist leader
• Profile: Mokhtar Belmokhtar

Zimbabwe has appealed for $100m (£82m) to help people affected by floods that have killed 246 and left nearly 2,000 people homeless since December.

After suffering a crippling drought last year that left more than four million in need of food aid, heavy rains began pounding parts of the south and south-west of the country in December.

Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere said floods had swept through villages, destroying roads, crops and livestock.

The air force has transported some marooned villagers to safety.

The rains have also devastated infrastructure: 74 schools had been damaged and 70 dams had burst, raising concerns for communities downstream, he said.

Five bridges on major highways have been swept away nationwide, Transport Minister Joram Gumbo said.

"Our roads have deteriorated to the extent that some sections of the national road network have become impassable,'' Zimbabwe's Daily News newspaper quoted Mr Gumbo as saying.

Last week, the cash-strapped government was criticised for spending a reported $2m to celebrate President Robert Mugabe's 93rd birthday.

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