Alex Duval Smith
BBC Africa, Dakar

Martin Kyere leapt from the pick-up truck into the darkness. Bullets whistled around him as he ran for his life through the thick Gambian forest. He fell. He picked himself up. He dodged the soldiers' searchlight.

He promised himself not to rest until Mr Jammeh was brought to justice.

Thirteen years later and now living in his native Ghana, Mr Kyere is the key witness in an international effort to bring The Gambia's former president to trial for what was probably the single largest mass killing during the 22-year reign of terror.

Read my full story here

Image source, Cellou Binani/AFP

The World Health Organization has sent the first 4,000 doses of an Ebola vaccine to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Officials hope the vaccine, developed by Merck, can contain the latest outbreak, which is believed to have killed 20 people since April, Reuters news agency reports.

The experimental vaccine was shown to be effective during limited trials in West Africa during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 11,000 people.

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has signed a new law imposing a $50,000 (£37,000) fine on people who share false information electronically.

They could also face two years in prison. Journalists have expressed concern about the law, saying it could be used to stifle press freedom in Kenya.

Those who spread child pornography are liable for a fine of up to $200,000 and a 25-year jail sentence.

False information, spread on social media, played a significant part in last year's election.

Kennedy Gondwe
BBC News, Lusaka

Image source, Reuters

Zambia's President Edgar Lungu is building a mansion for himself in Swaziland, also known as eSwatini, The Times of Swaziland has confirmed on its website. , external

Its report comes after days of controversy in Zambia, with Mr Lungu's critics questioning how he acquired the land and the cost - unconfirmed reports have put the mansion's price tag at around $4m (£3m).

Zambia's chief government spokeswoman Dora Siliya has not commented about the price, but has said that King Mswati gave Mr Lungu the land as a "gift".

"These are normal practices when the president travels, that various gifts are given in various forms. In this case it was land that was given to the president. This land was processed and given to the president in title,” Ms Siliya told a press briefing earlier this week.

“So there is nothing sinister about that because I do know now that people like to create stories even when there are no stories.”

Image source, Reuters

But there are doubts that King Mswati owned the land.

The Times of Swaziland reports that despite the Zambian government saying the land was a gift, it had seen documents from the Deeds Registry which showed that it was one of around 90 plots owned by Inyatsi Properties Limited, which had acquired it lawfully from Rudolph Investments last year.

Retired Zambian presidents were by law entitled to a house constructed by the state as part of their retirement package.

Mr Lungu, however, scrapped off the entitlement three years ago as a “cost-saving” measure.

A business association in South Africa's coastal city of Durban has asked foreign nationals to close their businesses and leave the city's northern townships by Friday.

The Northern Region Business Association accuses foreign nationals of suffocating the local economy in townships and unfair business practices, eNCA, external reports.

This comes nearly three years after 2,000 people were displaced and six non-South Africans were killed during xenophobic attacks in KwaZulu-Natal.

Foreign shop owners have appealed to the government to protect them as the deadline looms.

"We are running the business like any business people. We got no problem with the community itself." Ethiopian business owner, Jamal Andullahi, told eNCA.

"Our big problem is with the business association people. This is another way a competition over the business that’s the way I understand it."

The association denies that its actions are xenophobic.

The Kenyan government has urged people living near the Masinga dam to move to higher ground over fears that it will burst it banks.

The dam, which is on Tana River in Kenya's Eastern Province, is expected to overflow by Friday, Kenyan daily Standard Media reports, external.

Energy Cabinet Secretary Charles Keter advised residents to move to higher ground.

"The inflows are huge and it is worrying,” Mr Keter said.

Masinga feeds four other dams downstream, which are already full.

The news comes days after at least 41 people died after the Patel dam burst on a commercial farm near the town of Solai, 190km (120 miles) north-west of the capital, Nairobi.

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Image source, Science Photo Library

Tanzania has invited companies to bid for a large-scale logging project in one of Africa's most precious game reserves.

It intends to sell millions of trees in the Selous game park, which is a Unesco world heritage centre.

Selous in southern Tanzania is home to black rhinos, elephants, lions, rare birds and other species. It has an exceptionally high variety of habitats, ranging from swamps to rain forests.

Conservationists have already expressed concern about plans to build a vast hydroelectric plant on a river in the game reserve.

South Africa's opposition Economic Freedom fighters (EFF) party has called for a statue of Paul Kruger in the capital, Pretoria, to be demolished and for it to be replaced with one honouring the late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Kruger was a 19th century Afrikaner leader known for his opposition to the British in South Africa.

The party's renewed calls comes nearly three months after it threatened to pull-down the statue, which prompted city officials to surround it with barbed wire.

The EFF believes the statue symbolizes apartheid and has given the Tshwane Metro an ultimatum to remove it, South African broadcaster eNCA reports, external.

Spanish football giants Barcelona have arrived in South Africa to play in the Mandela Centenary Cup tonight, causing huge excitement among fans who hope to see superstars Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez in action.

Barcelona landed at O.R. Tambo International Airport after a two-hour delay, with fans waiting to welcome their heroes.

South Africa's TimesLive news site has tweeted the scene at the airport:

The players waved to the crowd, and headed straight to their bus under heavy security and police guard and without speaking to the media.

Barcelona will face off Mamelodi Sundowns in front of a capacity crowd at the FNB Stadium, where Spain lifted the football World Cup in 2010.

This is the second time Barcelona are playing in South Africa. They beat Sundowns 2-1 in their previous encounter in 2007.

Tonight's match is part of celebrations to mark 100 years since the birth of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

He died in December 2013 aged 95, and Barcelona wore black armbands during a Copa del Rey game against Cartagena to honour Mr Mandela, who spent 27 years in jail for fighting the racist system of apartheid in South Africa.

Image source, AFP

A new report says the number of Africans taking refuge within their countries because of conflict has doubled in a single year.

The report, external - by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Unit (IDMU) - found that nearly three million people were left homeless within their countries in 2017, bringing the total to nearly six-million.

It says the hardest hit country was the Democratic Republic of Congo, while South Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia and the Central African Republic were also affected.

The report says many of them live in insecure areas, making it all the more difficult to provide them with essentials like food, water and medicine.

Our African proverb of the day:

Click here and scroll to the bottom to send us your African proverbs.

Welcome to BBC Africa Live, where we resume our coverage of the latest news and views from around the continent.

That's all from BBC Africa Live today. Keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or check the BBC News website.

A reminder of today's wise words:

Click here and scroll to the bottom to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this portrait by Senegalese artist Baye Kebe Malick AKA Malick Welli:

Victor Kenani
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Kenyan mothers today descended on a restaurant in the capital, Nairobi, to breastfeed after a customer posted on Facebook that she was asked to stop breastfeeding at the venue.

One of the mothers, Julia Njoki, explained why she decided to breastfeed at the protest:

She found herself in the middle of a media circus:

We reported earlier that the restaurant had appealed for calm in the face of the women's outrage, asking for time to deal with the matter internally.

We have just come across this video of a dance-off between an official from English football club Hull and a Kenyan football fan.

The Hull team, which is sponsored by Kenya's betting company SportPesa, is visiting the country and played a friendly match over the weekend.

Watch the video and judge for yourself who you think won the competition:

Some 160,000 people have fled their homes in Cameroon's English-speaking region since 2016, AFP news agency says, quoting a report by the UN.

"The majority of the displaced have fled into the bush with little to survive on" says the report by the UN's humanitarian agency.

The report also said that about 20,000 people had crossed to neighbouring Nigeria, a number 14,000 short of what Nigeria's State Emergency Management Agency (Sema) estimates, AFP adds.

The current crisis in the Anglophone north-west and south-west regions was sparked by a growing feeling of discrimination.

English speakers say they are excluded from top civil service jobs and that government documents are often only published in French, even though English is also an official language.

An armed separatist group has been pushing for an independent state called Ambazonia.

The group has been accused of kidnapping officials and other French-speaking Cameroonians, while the army is accused of abuses and burning houses.

Read: Cameroon's 'absentee president'

Image source, Getty Images

European embassies in Sudan have opposed the sentencing to death of a 19-year-old woman for killing her husband, reports AFP news agency.

Noura Hussein killed her husband after he allegedly raped her as his male cousins held her down.

AFP reports that the embassies of EU countries, Norway and Switzerland expressed their "firm opposition to the death penalty, whatever the place and circumstances" in a joint statement.

Yesterday we reported that three UN agencies wrote to Sudan's President Omal al-Bashir to urge him to pardon Ms Hussein.

The case has attracted widespread attention on social media where people have been using the hashtag #JusticeforNoura to campaign against her death sentence.

A student has been killed in clashes with police at a Senegalese university, as students demanded payment of their grants, the Senegalese interior minister has told AFP news agency.

Ali Ngouye Ndiaye told private station Radio Future Media that 18 police officers were also injured in the scuffle at the University of Saint-Louis in northern Senegal.

The second-year student was shot dead, student sources told AFP, adding "more than 20" were injured.

The students were arguing that as they had not received their grants they should be allowed to eat without paying the bill at the university restaurants, AFP explains.

This prompted the authorities to call the police, the interior minister added.

The minister said he expected an inquiry to be held and promised that the grants would be paid.

Image source, Getty Images

Ethiopia's new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said that his government was investigating foreign bank accounts held by government officials, state-owned Fana Broadcasting Corporation news site reports., external

The report did not give details of whether they were former or current government officials or what their rank was.

It just said that foreign countries are co-operating with the government in the investigation.

He took office in April, after his predecessor Hailemariam Desalegn resigned following months of anti-government protests.

Mr Abiy has promised to implement reforms in the country to address the problems that led to public disaffection with the government.

Read: Is this the man to change Ethiopia?

Image source, Getty Images

The mother of a schoolgirl being held by Islamist militants Boko Haram has told CNN, external that no official from the Nigerian government has visited her since she was captured.

"Only Christian organisations have been coming to see us. No one from government. We are on our own," she told CNN.

In February Boko Haram kidnapped children from a school in Nigeria's northern town of Dapchi.

They released 106 children in March but kept one.

Her mother repeated reports at the time that Boko Haram would release her if she converted to Islam, which she refuses to do.

She has been in captivity for 84 days.

"When my daughter comes back, I will not allow her to go to that school again," her mother added.