Image source, AFP

Eleven people have been shot dead as they made their way home from a village market in central Nigeria.

Several others were wounded in the attack in Plateau state - an area which has enjoyed relative peace over the last two years.

The BBC's Is'haq Khalid, in Abuja, said their vehicle was ambushed near Rim village in Riyom area.

Residents say the attackers were seen in military uniform, but the authorities say only investigations will unravel the true identity of the assailants, our reporter adds.

Plateau state police commander Terna Tyopev told Nigerian newspaper the Premium Times police were on the trail of the killers.

He said:

The area is used to bloodshed, despite its recent calm.

In the past, thousands of people were killed in more than a decade of ethnic and religious violence as well as clashes between farmers and herdsmen in the area.

Pockets of violence have begun to pop up again, however. More than 30 people were killed last month during raids on their villages.

Leonard Mubali
BBC Africa, Dar es Salaam

At least six children have been killed and more than 20 others injured in an explosion at a primary school near Tanzania's border with Burundi, witnesses say.

The pupils apparently died when an object they were playing with exploded at the school, in Kihinga village.

Hospital doctor Maria Goreth Fredricks said 25 people had been admitted for treatment, and three children had since died.

Image source, Shabani Nasibu from Radio kwizera Ngara

Three other children died on the spot, witnesses said, but there has been no confirmation of this from official sources.

Detectives have been dispatched to the school to investigate, Kagera regional police commander Augustine Orome said.

Image source, AFP

Police have launched a manhunt for the so-called ringleader behind the booing of Grace Mugabe on Saturday.

An appeal has been launched to find Magura Magura Charumbira, the 34-year-old police say led the "disruption" as Mrs Mugabe spoke on stage in Bulawayo.

The incident is said to have upset her husband, President Robert Mugabe, and eventually led to the toppling of his long-time ally Emmerson Mnangagwa from his role as vice-president.

Mr Charumbira, who had previously said he was linked to a faction said to support Mr Mnangagwa, had already been expelled from his local party.

Zanu-PF Bulawayo provincial chairman Cde Dennis Ndlovu told the state-run Herald newspaper:

The trial of 18 men accused of raping dozens of young girls in a village in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is to begin.

The girls, who were aged just 18 months to 11 years, were allegedly taken from their homes in the middle of the night as their families slept.

Many of the victims were left with irreparable damage due to their young age.

Journalist Lauren Wolfe has travelled to the village, discovering how the alleged rapists were motivated by a belief in the supernatural and the power of virgin blood.

Listen to her on BBC Newsday below.

Ivory Coast and Ghana are drawing up plans to save their rainforests from being destroyed by the cocoa industry.

According to the UK-based Guardian newspaper, external, the two countries are currently drawing up legislation to protect what remains of the forests.

Vast swathes have been cut down to make way for cocoa by farmers, looking to make money from the international demand for chocolate.

It is believed that in Ivory Coast, the world's leading cocoa producer, 40% of the country's crop is grown in protected forests.

Many of them cut down the trees in order to ensure their crops get the sunlight.

Image source, Reuters

However, the Guardian says that Ivory Coast is hoping to get cocoa traders to organise farmers so they plant trees to create a "densely shaded" forest while they grow their crops underneath.

It appears to mark a change in approach from the government, which has previously tried to evict the farmers from the forest, leading to accusations of human rights abuses.

They also hope to make some of the forests into national parks.

Ghana's plans are more ambitious, including giving complete transparency to the cocoa food chain, from farmer upwards.

How either country will pay for the plans is unclear, the newspaper reports.

• Watch the BBC's Tamasin Ford's report on how cocoa farming threatens rainforests in Ivory Coast here

At least two Cameroonian paramilitary police officers have been killed in an overnight raid on a security checkpoint at the entrance of the main English-speaking city of Bamenda, BBC Afrique's Frédéric Takang reports from the city.

There have been a wave of protests against Cameroon's mainly French-speaking government in Anglophone regions, where many people complain of discrimination and are demanding independence.

However, it is unclear who was behind the attack.

Image source, AFP

BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Somalia says it has won the military war against the militant Islamists al-Shabab, leading the group to switch to terror tactics.

Somalia's information minister, Abdirahman Osman, told the BBC's Newsday programme the extremists would soon be totally defeated.

His comments come after it was announced African Union (AU) forces were to gradually withdraw from the country over the next two years.

The first contingent of 1,000 soldiers will leave by the end of the year.

Mr Osman said the withdrawal was going ahead despite the devastating truck bomb attack in Mogadishu last month in which nearly 400 people were killed.

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