Ishaq Khalid
BBC News, Abuja

At least 21 passengers, including children, were burnt to death when their bus was ambushed by gunmen in the north-western Nigerian state of Sokoto, police say.

They were travelling from the town of Sabon Birni to the town of Isa near the border with Niger.

Police spokesperson Sanusi Abubakar told the BBC that several others are being treated in a hospital for severe burns.

Some reports suggest the number of those killed is around 30.

One of those involved in evacuating the casualties described the scene as "horrendous" and that most of the victims were burnt beyond recognition.

The attack happened late on Monday but details are just emerging due to poor communication services in the area.

Some reports say the attackers deliberately set the vehicle on fire burning the occupants alive while another account indicates the fire ignited on the bus as a result of the attackers’ gunfire.

The police say they are investigating the circumstances of the attack.

Travellers are frequently targeted as the region continues to grapple with a wave of violence by armed gangs carrying out kidnappings for ransom as well as killings.

Sebastian Usher
BBC Arab Affairs Editor

Four university lecturers in Morocco have appeared in court accused of offering students better grades in return for sex.

They are charged with incitement to debauchery, gender discrimination and violence against women.

A fifth lecturer is to appear in court on Wednesday on charges of indecent assault and battery.

The scandal is focused on the Hassan the First University in the city of Settat, but it's only the latest in a series of allegations of sexual harassment at Moroccan universities in recent years.

Most have not gone to trial.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Image source, Getty Images

The former chief of staff of the Democratic Republic of Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi, Vital Kamerhe, has returned to his residence after being granted a provisional release.

His aide is quoted by local media as saying that he was fine and reunited with his family.

Mr Kamerhe was granted provisional freedom for health reasons.

His release was dependent on the payment of $500,000 (£377,000) bail.

Mr Kamerhe was on 20 June last year sentenced to 20 years of hard labour by the Gombe high court in a case of misappropriation of public funds.

His sentence was reduced on appeal to 13 years of hard labour in June 2021.

He is the most senior politician to face trial for corruption in the country. His lawyer alleged the trial was political.

Mr Kamerhe backed President Tshisekedi in the 2018 election in an apparent arrangement for the president to support him in the 2023 vote.

A small study in South Africa suggests the new variant could partially evade the Pfizer jab.

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

The winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature has described as inhumane the responses of the UK and France to migrants trying to cross the English Channel.

On the day he received his medal, the Tanzanian-born novelist, Abdulrazak Gurnah, said he didn't understand why British ministers referred to them as criminals and thieves when some in the government come from immigrant families themselves.

A record 26,000 migrants have crossed the Channel from France to the UK this year. Dozens others have died.

Mr Gurnah, now a British citizen, also expressed some amazement that the UK government had not congratulated him on his Nobel, wondering whether that was because he was an immigrant from Africa.

Read more: Why Abdulrazak Gurnah is hardly known back home

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Two students in Nigeria were crushed to death while 12 others sustained varying injuries in Lagos city when a lorry rammed into them on Tuesday, police have said

The lorry reportedly suffered a brake failure with the driver losing control of the vehicle.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC that the children were returning from a school when the driver rammed into them as they were crossing the road.

The incident occurred in the afternoon at the peak of schools’ closing time.

Reports indicate that the driver tried to escape after hitting the children, but he was chased and arrested.

The incident sparked civil disturbances in the area as other aggrieved students started attacking motorists and vandalising vehicles.

The incident comes three days after eight children were found dead locked up in a car in another part of Lagos.

Nomsa Maseko
BBC Southern Africa correspondent

Image source, AFP

South Africa’s parliament has failed to secure the two-thirds majority it needed to amend the constitution to pave the way for land expropriation without compensation.

During a debate on Tuesday, ruling Africa National Congress (ANC) party MP Mathole Motshekga, who chaired the committee that drafted the bill, said parliament had the opportunity to address a “crime against against African humanity and dispossession of land”.

Two main opposition parties - the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Democratic Alliance - did not support the amendment.

EFF leader Julius Malema said the process was a complete failure because the ANC introduced a “nil compensation” clause which is not what the party wanted.

The DA said the amendment would be detrimental for South Africa.

The country's white minority is believed to have a disproportionate hold over land, with a few thousand white commercial farmers possessing the most fertile land.

However, critics fear expropriation could lead to land grabs, as happened in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Our African proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

A young man tells of his harrowing ordeal at the hands of traffickers who tricked him and his parents.

A lack of rooms means Jennie Bianco is staying near Gatwick, while her family are in Milton Keynes.

Oche Ameh is due to return to the UK on 23 December but would have to quarantine for 10 days.

That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for now. We'll be back on Wednesday morning Nairobi time.

Until then there will be an automated service and you can find the latest updates on the BBC News website, or listen to our podcast Africa Today.

Our African proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with picture shared by a photographer in Mozambique's capital, Maputo:

Alfred Mushi
BBC News, Dar es Salaam

Image source, AFP

The authorities in Tanzania say they plan to lift bans and suspensions on media organisations which had been barred from operating.

Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Constitution and Legal Affairs, Amon Mpanju, said the the government has been holding talks with media owners and the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders' Coalition.

"We were all looking at revising some law provisions to ensure that we set free all banned media outlets,” said Mr Mpanju in a statement.

He added that President Samia Suluhu Hassan had ordered the ministry to resolve press freedom challenges in the country.

Ms Samia's predecessor, John Magufuli, was repeatedly accused of suppressing press freedom in Tanzania.

Under his government, newspapers and critical websites were shut down or suspended and several journalists were arrested.

Nichola Mandil
BBC News, Juba

Image source, Getty Images

Representatives of the Dutch peace movement, Pax, are in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, to raise awareness amongst the public about the atrocities committed by the Swedish Oil Company, Lundin Energy, during the 21-year war with Sudan.

In the mid-1990s, international companies signed contracts with the Sudanese government to exploit oil in areas that were in its control, which led to a war with the rebels that lasted until 2003.

Lundin was among companies awarded contracts for Block 5A in Unity State which was worst affected by human rights violations with an estimated 180,000 people displaced.

The Swedish government has indicted Lundin Energy for abetting the war crimes committed in the oil fields in Unity State between 1997 and 2003.

“We are here to inform the South Sudanese public so that they understand the case (in the court in Stockholm)," Petter Bolme, from the Unpaid Debut Project, told reporters in Juba on Monday.

"An estimated 12,000 people died in essentially in war over control over oil areas, the war that was motivated by Lundin security needs, because Lundin demanded Sudanese authorities to provide security, and as a result, vast majority of the population was displaced – terribly improvised,” he said.

Azeezat Olaoluwa
BBC News, Lagos

Image source, TWITTER/ PERRIE

Three students have been arrested in connection to the death of 12-year-old schoolboy Sylvester Oromoni at a boarding college in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos.

Police say two other students also wanted for alleged assault are on the run.

The Lagos state Police Commissioner Hakeem Odumosu told local media that the principal, house masters and other school officials are assisting the security agency with the investigation.

The Oromoni family is accusing five senior students of Dowen College of allegedly torturing their son for refusing to join a cult group.

More than 200,000 people have signed online petitions demanding justice for Sylvester.

#JusticeForSylvester continues to trend on Twitter.

Kenyan side Sofapaka is handed a ban on registering new players by Fifa after failing to pay a former player his dues.

Jose Tembe
BBC News, Maputo

Image source, The Presidency

Mozambican optometrist Isaura Brito dos Santos has been named the Eye Health Hero 2021.

She was honoured by the UK-based International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness after being nominated among 81 other experts.

Dr Dos Santos worked with a Spanish NGO to improve the quality of eye health in children in Mozambique.

She is currently the director of the optometry course at the faculty of health sciences of Mozambique's Lurio University.

A landmark ruling during a matrimonial case in Kenya acknowledged that housework is work.

Ishaq Khalid
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, Getty Images

At least 74% of inmates in Nigeria's prisons are suspects awaiting trial, Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola has said.

Out of 68,000 prisoners, only 17,000 are convicts, Mr Aregbesola said on Monday during an event to inaugurate a pilot for virtual courtrooms.

He said the "overwhelming number" of remand prisoners, as well as causing overcrowding in the facilities, were largely responsible for the recent increase in jailbreaks in the country.

In the last year, more than 5,000 inmates have escaped following attacks on several prisons. Most of them remain on the run.

Mr Aregbesola admitted that most of the prisoners are "denied justice" due to the country’s chronically slow judicial process.

He said many of them die before the conclusion of their trials - others stay in detention beyond the maximum jail term of the offence they’re accused of – even though they’ve not been convicted.

Mr Aregbesola said this situation pricks the conscience of the government and the country.

The Nigerian authorities say they’re trying to address the problem by building more correctional centres and speeding up trials.

We've tweeted a video we made last year about one man who spent years on remand:

Vice-President Prosper Bazombanza says at least 38 people died and scores more were injured.