Rana Jawad
BBC North Africa correspondent

Image source, AFP

Violence in Libya is having a devastating impact on health care, a report by the UN Human Rights Office says.

Hospitals are routinely getting shelled and looted, with their corridors becoming the scene of shootings, it says.

Rebels often force doctors at gunpoint to give preferential treatment to their injured fighters and relatives.

Those carrying out the assaults include armed groups who are nominally allied to the UN-backed government.

In the past year, the UN recorded more than 30 such attacks across Libya, but the agency says the number could be significantly higher, as medical staff do not report cases fearing reprisals.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, says violations that include directing attacks against hospitals and personnel “may constitute war crimes".

Libya has been in chaos since the overthrow and killing of long-time leader Col Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

• Read: Why is Libya so lawless?

Jose Tembe
BBC Africa, Maputo

Image source, AFP

Police in the Mozambique's northern Niassa province say they are looking for people who exhumed the body of a man with albinism.

They took his bones for suspected use in witchcraft.

Niassa provincial spokesperson, Alves Mate, said that it was their second attempt on the grave.

"Criminals, carrying hoes, pickaxes and a bucket dug the grave of an albino man. They removed all his bones of the upper part of the body. Then they fled," Mr Mane told a press briefing.

"Had the local people informed us about the first attempt, we could have taken precautionary measures to avoid it from happening again.”

People with albinism, who lack pigment in their skin and appear pale, are often hunted down in central and southern Africa because of the belief that potions made from their body parts can bring good luck and wealth.

• Read: 'I am too scared to sleep'

Elias Hordofa
BBC Afaan Oromoo

Many students at Ethiopia’s Mizan-Tepi University are protesting after allegations of an attempted rape on Sunday.

Two men allegedly went into the women’s bathroom and tried to rape a student, but her shouts raised the alarm and they fled.

The alleged incident has prompted angry demonstrations, which started on campus and have now spread to the town of Mizan Teferi, which is 500km (310 miles) from the capital, Addis Ababa, in the south-west of the country.

Students say there have been five recent incidents when female students have been allegedly raped or sexually abused.

“Everybody is protesting against this, regardless of gender and ethnicity,’’ a female student, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the BBC.

“Such cases have been happening for the past few months,” she said.

One of the reasons female students were preyed upon by sexual predators was because there was no tap water at the university, she said.

So they were forced to go to a forested area to fetch water from a river as early as 04:00, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

The university administration has been told about their concerns, without any results, she said.

The student said she had now left the campus and was hiding in the town, where she felt safer.

Image source, Mizan-Tepi University

Sammy Maina
BBC Monitoring

At least four people have been killed, including a policeman, in an anti-terrorism raid in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou-based news website Burkina 24 reports.

“Three assailants were neutralised in the ensuing shootout. A gendarme was also killed. He was identified as Chief Sergeant Francois de Salle Ouedraogo,” reported the website.

The report added that security forces conducted the anti-terrorism operation in Rayongo, on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, at about 03:00 local time, acting on a tip-off form reliable sources.

Burkina24 also reported that a sizeable arms cache and military uniforms were recovered during the operation.

This is the second major attack in the past three months in the capital, with at least eight security forces and eight militants being killed in March 2018 after a two-pronged attack by a prominent al-Qaeda affiliate based in Mali targeted the army headquarters and the French embassy in Ouagadougou.

It's eight months to Nigeria's general election and for one politician it's not too early to launch his campaign.

Pascal Ikenna Ejiogu from the opposition Action Democratic Party (ADP) has put up a billboard inspired by Marvel film Black Panther for his bid for the governorship of Imo state.

It declares that "it's time to take Imo back" and invites voters to "walk with me to fulfill God's plans" for the state.

A study by Afrobarometer shows that support for a free media in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda is weakening.

The research group found that there was greater support for government control of media content in Tanzania, where President John Magufuli's administration recently required bloggers to get a licence to operate.

Kenya has recently introduced a cyber-crime law that punishes those found to be spreading "false information". The government also shutdown main TV stations after they defied a directive not to air an opposition event.

The study found Ugandans had the most support for a free media despite continuous state harassment of journalists.

But there was growing support for those who thought the government “should have the right to prevent the media from publishing things that it considers harmful to society".

The study was conducted between 2016 and 2017.

Read: How East Africa is cracking down on 'fake news'

Wildlife authorities in Kenya have shared a short video of a black rhino and her newest calf.

It is the eighth time the rhino, who lives in Nairobi National Park, has given birth.

A tweet from Kenya Wildlife Service says she is camera shy and lives in forested parts of the park:

Rhinos are born without a horn, so rely on their mothers to protect them.

Black rhinos are a critically endangered species, largely because of the illegal trade in their horns. There are thought to be only around 5,000 left in the world, external.

Black rhinos are the smaller of the two African rhino species.

Earlier this year, the world's last surviving male northern white rhino died in Kenya.

Human Rights Watch says the Egyptian army has greatly intensified the demolition of buildings and farms in North Sinai as part of its campaign against Islamist militants.

The campaign group said satellite images showed that at least 3,000 homes and commercial premises had been destroyed since February, and hundreds of hectares of land rendered useless.

Human Rights Watch analysed a series of satellite imagery recorded between 15 January and 14 April:

Image source, HRW

Egypt says the forced evictions are designed to create a buffer zone to protect civilians from the long-running jihadist insurgency in Sinai.

Human Rights Watch said the destruction, without judicial oversight, was exacerbating an already perilous humanitarian crisis.

Sarah Leah Whitson, from Human Rights Watch, said in a statement, external:

The Sinai peninsula, where Egypt's most active militants are based, borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Shingai Nyoka
BBC Africa, Harare

Supporters of Movement for Democratic Change leader Nelson Chamisa are singing outside Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court, which is sitting to hear arguments over which faction of the opposition party can use the MDC logo:

Mr Chamisa took over as MDC leader after Morgan Tsvangirai, a fierce opponent of the ruling Zanu-PF party, died of colon cancer in February.

His leadership has been challenged by Thokozani Khupe, who served as deputy prime minister between 2009 and 2013 in a unity government.

But the MDC says Ms Khupe has been fired and she cannot use the party’s logo.

It wants the Supreme Court to send the case back to the High Court to decide who can use the logo. It does not want the court to decide who is the rightful MDC leader.

Those gathered outside the court in the capital, Harare, are chanting: “‘Thoko Khupe [is a] sell out. See what we will do.”

General elections are scheduled for July, the first to be held since Robert Mugabe resigned in November as president after 37 years in office.

Image source, AFP

BBC Afrique

Image source, Simon Gongo/BBC

A shootout in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, is over after seven hours.

Our reporter Simon Gongo says he has seen two dead bodies at the house in an eastern suburb of the capital where the shooting took place.

The city’s chief prosecutor is now inspecting the building.

Image source, Simon Gongo/BBC

Police were called to the building in the early hours after reports of “suspicious activities”.

The West African country has been on high alert following several attacks by Islamist militants over the last two years.

Police in South Africa's city of Ekurhuleni in the northern Gauteng province have uncovered a stash of cash in a house after an early morning raid, IOL news site reports. , external

Another local site tweeted pictures of the find:

A couple - a man and a woman - at the raided property told police that the money, reportedly 1.5 million rand ($120,000; £90,000), belonged to a guard for money-transit company SBV.

However, the company has denied the link.

Ekurhuleni police boss Wilfred Kgasago is quoted as saying that they were dealing with "a considerable amount of money but I cannot reveal the exact amount... it is probably being counted as we speak."

Media reports say that the recovered money could be from last week's daring heist in which gunmen shot and blew up vans transporting cash.

Mr Kgasago did not say if the cash was linked to that incident.

But he said that the couple at the raided property and two women had been arrested.

Watch the aspiring young Egyptian footballers in Mo Salah's hometown of Nagrig, who are taking inspiration from the Liverpool FC ace:

Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say two more people have died from the Ebola virus, the Reuters news agency reports.

The fatalities were recorded in the north-east city of Mbandaka and a nurse died in the village of Bikoro, where the outbreak was first detected, health ministry spokeswoman Jessica Ilunga said.

Officials also said seven new cases had been confirmed.

Health workers began an immunisation campaign on Monday in an attempt to halt the spread of the deadly virus.

At least 28 people are now believed to have died in the current outbreak.

• More about the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo

BBC Afrique

Shots have been heard since 03:00 local time (03:00 GMT) in eastern suburbs of Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou.

Security sources have told the BBC that police were called to a house after residents reported “suspicious activities”.

The firing is ongoing in the neighourhoods of Karpala and Saaba.

Our reporter in the city, Simon Gongo, says the situation is confusing. We will update you when we get more details.

Image source, AFP

The number of piracy incidents doubled off the coast of East Africa in 2017 compared to 2016, an international maritime body says.

It showed that Somali criminal networks were still capable of sophisticated attacks, the OneEarth Future said in their annual State of Piracy report, external.

Its lead author Maisie Pigeon said in a statement:

Phil Belcher from the association of tanker owner, Intertanko, said the conflict in Yemen was also threatening shipping near the Horn of Africa.

“We are advising our members to consider a more comprehensive security assessment to take into account other threats."

Piracy also continued to pose a threat in the Gulf of Guinea despite a broad array of countermeasures implemented by coastal states and maritime security companies, the report said.

Piracy off the Somali coast - usually for ransom - had dropped significantly in recent years, in part because of extensive international military patrols as well as support for local fishing communities.

At the height of the crisis in 2011, there were 237 attacks and the annual cost of piracy was estimated to be up to $8bn (£7bn).

Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa has set up a special team to fight corruption, saying he is not happy with the pace of prosecution.

The team will directly answer to him but will also collaborate with other state agencies including the National Prosecuting Authorities, state-owned Herald newspaper reports. , external

The objective of the team is "to improve efficiency in the fight against all forms of corruption".

The Herald reports that Mr Mnangagwa has vowed to fight corruption as he sees it as an impediment to the country's economic growth.

However, a Zimbabwean academic has reacted to a video of the president making the announcement of the special team, calling it a "kangaroo court".

BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Guinea's President Alpha Condé has appointed Ibrahima Kassory Fofana as the country's new prime minister amid heightened political tensions.

Mr Fofana, an economist, replaces Mamady Youla, who resigned last week along with his government.

Analysts say he will need to relaunch the economy and diffuse tension following local elections which the opposition says were marred by fraud and rioting.

Mr Fofana, an ally of the president, will also face scrutiny from critics who think Mr Condé intends to change the constitution to remain in power.

Twenty-five African migrants have been rescued off the coast of Brazil after 35 days at sea, officials and local media say.

The migrants, all men from Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, were travelling on a boat with two Brazilians, the navy said in a statement.

It said that there was no immediate indication about the route they took but officials said that the boat was flying an Haitian flag.

Local fishermen found the boat drifting off the town of Sao Jose de Ribamar, south of the Amazon river, on Saturday, the navy said.

They then towed it ashore and gave food and medicine to the occupants before they were processed by the police, the Maranhao human rights department said.

Brazilian officials said the group would be put into temporary housing by the state as the police investigate if crimes against them were committed in relation to their arrival in the country.

Brazil is seen as an 'El Dorado' for international migrants, especially those from West Africa.

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