BBC Africa Live
Lucy Fleming

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

A reminder of Friday's wise words:

Click here to send in your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this photo of a Kenyan couple dancing at a railway construction site. It is taken from our gallery of the best pictures from the week.

Image source, AFP

At least six soldiers have been killed in a car bomb explosion at the headquarters of the regional anti-terror force in Sevare, Reuters is quoting the town's mayor as saying.

Mali's army has just released these photos of the scene:

Image source, Mali army

Image source, Mali army

Image source, Mali army

See our earlier post about the bombing for more details: Anti-terror HQ attacked

Jose Tembe
BBC Africa, Maputo

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi has called on people to collaborate with the security forces after a series of deadly attacks carried out by a jihadist group known locally as al-Shabab.

Visiting the affected areas of Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique, Mr Nyusi called for vigilance and discouraged people from joining the insurgents.

Addressing one of several mass rallies he said:

The attacks began last October after Islamist militants had headed south from the Kenyan coast, where they had been coming under pressure from the authorities.

In remote villages of northern Mozambique people have been beheaded with machetes and homes burnt to the ground.

Read more:

• How Mozambique's smuggling barons nurtured jihadists

Ghana has reported two outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5 bird flu virus on farms this month, the World Animal Health Organisation says, external.

One of the outbreaks killed 5,431 birds in the Ashanti region at the beginning of June and another killed 5,935 birds in the Eastern region later in the month, it said.

The remaining birds in both flocks were all slaughtered.

The second outbreak followed the illegal movement of birds from the farm in Ashanti, the report said.

Image source, AFP

Gambia's government plans to auction ex-President Yahya Jammeh's luxury planes and cars online, the AFP news agency reports.

Regional countries intervened to force Mr Jammeh into exile after he lost elections in December 2016 but refused to leave power.

He left behind five planes and 30 luxury cars, including Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, as well as four plots of land, AFP says.

Last year, the government said it hoped to make millions of dollars from the sale of Mr Jammeh's assets, which it wants to invest in the health and education sectors.

"What we are doing as a government now is to design a web portal where all the assets would be posted," Lamin Camara, the finance ministry's permanent secretary, told AFP.

A date for the sale has yet to be decided.

Image source, AFP

Gunmen in Mali have attacked the headquarters of the regional force fighting Islamist militants in the Sahel region of West Africa, witnesses say.

There was an explosion - possibly caused by a suicide bomber - at the facility in the town of Sevare in central Mali.

Local orange seller Haoussa Haidara said there was a "huge blast" followed by exchanges of gunfire, the AFP news agency reports.

Six people were killed in the attack, according to a hospital and a military source, AFP says.

A UN source in Sevare told Reuters - on condition of anonymity - that the compound was also hit by a car bomb but that gunfire had died down by mid-afternoon.

The G5 task force was set up last year and is made up of soldiers from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania.

The force, which received funding from Western powers, is also supposed to be stopping smuggling and human-trafficking networks in the Sahel.

The attack comes three days before a meeting in Mauritania between French President Emmanuel Macron and the heads of the G5 member states to discuss the progress made by the force, AFP says.

France intervened in Mali in 2013 to help government forces drive al-Qaeda-linked jihadists from towns they had occupied in the north.

A separate UN peacekeeping force then deployed to Mali to help the government control the vast desert areas in the north.

Read more:

• Why the Sahara is terror's new front line

Image source, Michael Odijie

A group of Nigerian students at Cambridge University in the UK have held a protest against the recent killings in the central Plateu state.

Authorities say 200 people were killed in three-days of conflict which started last week Thursday.

The students urged President Muhammadu Buhari to "end these killings", saying that he has a duty to protect the lives of all Nigerians.

"These deaths from herdsmen attacks have become one too many; it has become regularised, it has become a culture, and we say no to that," a statement from the Cambridge University Nigeria Student Society said.

Reports say fighting began when ethnic Berom farmers attacked Fulani herders, killing five of them.

A retaliatory attack on Saturday led to more deaths in a conflict that also divide people along political and religious lines.

The university students said that after they finished their studies they would like to go back to Nigeria to contribute to the country's development.

But they warned: "We have no desire to go back to a country whose street is running in blood."

Image source, Michael Odijie

Read: Making sense of Nigeria's Fulani-farmer conflict

Three mobile network providers in Uganda have issued a joint statement to help their customers comply with a law taxing social media use, which comes into effect on 1 July.

Airtel, MTN and Africell have provided a daily, weekly and monthly pay structure and a guide on how to make payments.

MPs passed a law to impose the controversial tax in May after President Yoweri Museveni said social media encouraged gossip.

People using internet messaging platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber and Twitter will have to pay a daily levy of 200 shilling ($0.05, £0.04).

Here is the full statement from the three mobile phone companies:

Image source, Airtel/MTN/Africell

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Money looted by Nigeria’s former military ruler Sani Abacha is to be distributed to poor families, the government says.

The distribution is to start next month after more than $300m (£228m) was recently returned by the Swiss authorities.

The money, stolen by Abacha in the 1990s, is due to be given to around 300,000 households through monthly payments of around $14 each.

Some Nigerians have questioned whether this is the best way of distributing the money and there are also concerns that with elections just months away, the gifting of money could be seen as an effort to secure votes.

Read more about the late dictator's life:

• Sani Abacha timeline

Image source, Getty Images

Sophia, the famous humanoid robot, has arrived in Ethiopia – but without some of her body parts.

A bag containing some of the robot was lost at Frankfurt airport, which has led to cancellation of a press conference scheduled to take place on Friday at the Ethiopian National Museum in the capital, Addis Ababa.

Designed by Hong Kong firm Hanson Robotics, Sophia has been programmed to speak Amharic, Ethiopia's official language.

She was also due to have dinner with Ethiopia’s Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed during her three-day visit in the city.

Image source, Getty Images

But Getahun Mekuria, Ethiopia’s science and technology minister, told BBC Amharic that Sophia would still appear at Saturday’s MCIT International Expo.

Getnet Asefa, the manager of Icog Labs – the engineering firm behind her Amharic programming, explained that Sophia was fixable and they would find alternative parts for her.

Amharic is the first language she will have spoken other than English since she was activated in 2015.

Sophia isn't pre-programmed with answers, instead she uses machine learning and responds by reading people's expressions.

She shot to fame after becoming the first robot to gain the citizenship of a country – when Saudi Arabia gave her nationality last year.

Union officials and legal experts in Benin are concerned by the Constitutional Court's decision to back the government's ban on strikes by workers in the defence, security, justice and health sectors, the AFP news agency reports.

It was taken "in the public interest" and for "the protection of citizens", the agency quotes Thursday's ruling as saying.

A senior union leader, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP it was a shocking move and a "hammer blow" for workers.

MPs passed legislation banning public sector strikes in December after a wave of industrial action - but it could not become law until passed by the Constitutional Court.

Image source, AFP

Image source, AFP

Months of wrangling over the issue between the government and court have followed.

But earlier in June, a close ally of President Patrice Talon was elected to lead the court - a vote that was held behind closed doors, AFP says.

Legal affairs expert Albert Medagbe told AFP the court's backing of the ban was a "worrying sudden legal U-turn".

It is feared that around 100 migrants who were aboard a boat off the coast of Libya have drowned.

A coastguard official said only 14 survivors were rescued, the Reuters news agency reports.

The vessel appears to have got into trouble in waters to the east of the capital, Tripoli, but exactly what happened is not yet clear.

Many migrants from Africa and elsewhere set out from Libya in dangerously overcrowded boats as they attempt to reach Europe.

The latest drownings come as the EU leaders agreed, after marathon talks at a summit in Brussels, that secure centres for migrants may be set up in EU states to process asylum claims.

They also agreed an ambitious partnership with Africa, offering incentives to North African countries to host facilities where migrants can be assessed for resettlement in Europe.

However getting North African countries to host such centres could be very difficult and Morocco again on Thursday rejected the idea.

Read the BBC News story for more.

Image source, Getty Images

Egypt may be out of the World Cup but Liverpool striker Mo Salah is still considered a hero back home - as photos circulating on social media show.

Tweeters say that after his home address in the capital, Cairo, was leaked on Facebook, fans flocked there on Thursday night.

They say that rather than hide away, the football superstar came out to greet the crowds and sign autographs:

Image source, AFP

Zimbabwe’s Vice-President Kembo Mohadi, injured in a grenade attack at a governing party rally on Saturday, has been airlifted to South Africa for treatment, Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper reports, external.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa was quoted by the paper as saying his deputy was seriously injured but was now recovering.

Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri had also been taken to South Africa for an operation – and she is understood to be recovering as well, the paper said.

Image source, AFP

Video footage from the rally in Bulawayo on Saturday showed an explosion happening close to Mr Mnangagwa as he left the stage after addressing supporters.

Two people died and more than 40 were hurt.

Earlier this week, President Mnangagwa told the BBC that he suspected a group linked to former First Lady Grace Mugabe was behind the attack.

Speaking on Thursday during a state visit to Tanzania, he dismissed the explosion as a “minor incident”, the Herald reported.

Elections are due to be held on 30 July - the first since Robert Mugabe was forced from office in November after 37 years in power.

Sam Olukoya
BBC Africa, Lagos

Image source, Reuters

The full scale of the tragedy is still visible as rescue workers in Nigeria’s biggest city of Lagos clear the road of the burnt-out remains of vehicles after a petrol tanker explosion on Thursday evening.

An acrid smell is still in the air.

Image source, AFP

At least nine people died and 54 vehicles were burnt after the tanker exploded as it attempted to climb a slope by the Otedola bridge on one of the main motorways into the city.

Burning fuel from the tanker flowed back setting alight the vehicles driving behind. Some people became trapped as the flames took hold.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Sadly, it’s a scene many Nigerians are too familiar with.

Oil tankers are behind some of the country’s worst road accidents.

Many of them were conveying imported fuel from Lagos port for distribution around the country - Africa's most populous nation.

Even though Nigeria is the world‘s sixth-largest exporter of crude oil, it imports virtually all its fuel because its refineries are not working because of several years of mismanagement.

Drivers are criticised for their reckless handling of tankers, which are often unroadworthy second-hand imports.

One of their notable features is their tendency to tumble and burst into flames when they try to climb steep slopes.

Many here know this is unlikely to be Nigeria’s last accident unless efforts are not made to improve drivers' skills and the standard of the tankers they drive.

Read the BBC News story for more.

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Madagascar's recently appointed Prime Minister, Christian Ntsay, says presidential elections will be held on 7 November this year, with a second round, if needed, on 19 December.

This is despite the fact that a constitutional court had earlier ruled that the polls should be held by October.

The elections have been controversial as President Hery Rajaonarimampianina earlier this year introduced a new law which barred key opposition candidate Marc Ravalomanana from running.

After street protests turned violent, the law was scrapped and in a bid to avert a political crisis, the constitutional court ordered the president to form a government of national unity and hold elections.

A Moroccan football fan has told Euronews, external how he was briefly detained in Russia during a World Cup football match and then told to leave the country after wearing a T-shirt criticising Fifa, the world's governing football body.

Yassine Omairy, who is a Moroccan-American, had printed "Shame on you Fifa” T-shirts as he was angry about the refereeing decisions taken during Morocco’s match against Portugal last week.

He wore one to Morocco’s next game against Spain on Monday, but it didn’t go down too well with officials - as his Facebook video shows:

The officials detained him and took away his passport, but then allowed him to watch the second half of the match.

He told Euronews that when he went to pick up his passport afterwards "they told me to leave the country as soon as possible. I will never forget this experience because I was treated unfairly and wrongly."

On Facebook overnight he said he was happy to see that his Facebook video was “reaching out to different countries and translated to other languages.

Euronews said it had contacted Fifa for a response.

BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Libyan militia leader Khalifa Haftar says that his forces now fully control the coastal city of Derna - until now the last radical Islamist stronghold in the east of the country.

Gen Haftar declared what he called the liberation of Derna in a televised speech.

There's been no independent confirmation, but it follows an intense six-week siege by his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), which is supported by Egypt.

Derna's population of more than 120,000 civilians is suffering from severe shortages of water, food and medicine.

Gen Haftar is one of the most powerful strongmen in Libya since he captured the main eastern city of Benghazi last year.

He supports a rival government to the UN-backed Libyan authority based in the capital, Tripoli.

• Libya's strongman profiled

Thomas Naadi
BBC Africa, Accra

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has sacked the head of the country's electoral commission for “misbehaviour and incompetence”.

Charlotte Osei and her two deputies were dismissed on the recommendation of a committee set up by the chief justice to investigate complaints against them.

Last year, a number of electoral commission workers alleged that she had abused her office – and demanded her removal over corruption allegations.

Mrs Osei was appointed by former President John Mahama, before his defeat by Mr Akufo-Addo in the last election.

She has denied any wrongdoing and Ghana's main opposition party has repeatedly said the accusations against her are trumped up.

Mrs Osei - a former corporate lawyer - was Ghana’s first female electoral commissioner since the country returned to multi-party democracy in 1992.

She had successfully supervised the 2016 general elections, according to international observers.

Ghanaian next go to the polls in 2020.

Image source, AFP

Our proverb of the day:

Image source, Getty Images

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