Image source, AFP

Gambians have begun voting for members of their one-chamber parliament in the the first polls since Yahya Jammeh left power after more than 22 years.

Under Mr Jammeh, the National Assembly was frequently ignored as the president enacted executive decrees without consultation.

Expectations are high that under the new president, Adama Barrow, parliament will play a key part in lawmaking.

Mr Barrow has pledged to carry out political, security and media reforms.

A coalition of seven parties that supported Mr Barrow during last year's presidential election has collapsed, with candidates from each now competing against each other. 

The party that supported Yahya Jammeh, the APRC, is also taking part.

One of those helping to organise the poll has been tweeting from the capital Banjul:

The US ambassador to The Gambia herself, Patricia Alsup (pictured below holding clipboard) appears to be among the observers:

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Betting on English football is big business in Uganda - and it's growing.

In a country with high unemployment levels, young men in particular are gambling to try and earn a living. 

But there are fears that many of them are now starting to get addicted to betting. 

BBC Minute reports from the capital Kampala: 

The US embassy in Sudan has condemned a police raid on a church in the capital Khartoum, in which one person was killed following a land ownership dispute. 

Another person was injured and 13 were arrested in the 3 April incident. 

The church members were staging a two-week sit-in when the police stormed the property.

An embassy statement called the attack "heinous" and said it was "deeply saddened" about the incident at the Omdurman Evangelical School and the Omdurman Presbyterian Church. 

It says that the police action is linked to a dispute over the land with a private investor claiming to have purchased the property. 

The church which runs a school on the property was founded by American Presbyterian missionaries in 1924.

Read more : Sudan country profile

Armed men have abducted five aid workers from the central Somali town of Beledweyne, locals have confirmed to the BBC Somali service.

The staff, who included two volunteers, a nurse, a driver and a veterinary, were working with the region's Veterinary Medical Association, the privately-owned Jowhar news website reports.

"The kidnapped workers were on an immunisation programme in a place 10km (6.2 miles)from Beledweyne town," the site added.

No group has said it was behind the abduction yet, but Islamist militant group al-Shabab has carried out attacks in the region before.

The abduction comes a day after al-Shabab released four aid worker who were doing work paid for by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the south-western town of Luuq.

Somalia's President, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, had declared the drought a national disaster, with nearly three million people in the country facing severe food insecurity.

At least 30 people have been killed in a road accident in central Zimbabwe after their bus heading to neighbouring South Africa hit a haulage truck, the local  NewsDay newspaper reports. , external

The paper quotes an eyewitness saying the bus caught fire when it came into contact with the side of the truck. 

Another witness says it was impossible to evacuate the causalities: 

Survivors have been rushed to Mvuma District Hospital and Driefontein Mission Hospital, the report says.   

Libyan authorities in the northern port city Misrata have freed 28 Eritreans and seven Nigeria nationals who had been in detention for months as authorities investigated their ties to the ousted Islamic State (IS) group, the Reuters news agency reports. 

The group, all but two of whom are women and children, escaped from Sirte, a former IS stronghold in central Libya, while forces from the nearby city of Misrata battled to oust the militants late last year.  

Some of the women were on their way to Europe when IS fighters kidnapped and held them as sex slaves. 

Samer Haddadin, head of the UNHCR's Libya mission, told Reuters that those released would be processed as refugees and given protection and medical treatment.

Dozens of women and children who escaped from Sirte or were picked up there by Libyan forces are still being held in Misrata. They include Libyans, Tunisians, and nationals from several sub-Saharan African countries, Reuters reports.

IS took control of Sirte in early 2015, turning the coastal city into its most important base outside Syria and Iraq, stationing hundreds of foreign fighters there. 

It took Misrata-led forces almost seven months to recapture the city.

Libya has been beset by chaos since Nato-backed forces overthrew long-serving ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011. 

Read more: Why is Libya so lawless? 

BBC World Service

Bus and taxi fares in Ghana have gone up by 15% today, sparking criticism of the government of President Nana Akufo-Addo. 

He came to power last year promising to transform Ghana's struggling economy and improve living conditions. 

But the government has agreed to the fares increase, to compensate operators for higher fuel prices and the rising cost of spare parts and maintenance. 

Many Ghanaians say the rise will add to the cost of living at a time when they are struggling to survive.

Our African proverb of the day:   

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