Image source, Getty Images

Sudan's Central Reserve Police has been sanctioned by the United States for using "excessive force" against anti-military demonstrators.

The US Treasury said the force was at the "forefront" of the crackdown against the protest movement that swept the country since the October coup last year.

More than 80 people were killed in protests in the capital Khartoum alone, and over 3,000 were injured in the five months of protests.

"We condemn Sudan's security services for killing, harassing, and intimidating Sudanese citizens," the US Treasury's statement said.

This is the first time the US has sanctioned a Sudanese force since the October coup.

The sanctions include an assets freeze although it is not clear if the force has any assets in the US.

"Today's sanctions send an important message that those responsible for the killing and injuring of peaceful protesters in Sudan will be held to account," Charlie Loudon an international legal adviser at the rights group REDRESS told the BBC.

Read more: Sudan protesters ready to die for freedom

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Burundi has banned rickshaws, motorcycle taxis and all other forms of two- and three-wheel public transport from the commercial capital, Bujumbura.

Private bicycles and motorbikes are also banned. Police are stationed on roads leading to the city to make sure the vehicles remain on the periphery.

The government says drivers of these cheap forms of public transport are responsible for most road accidents in the country.

More than 600,000 people are estimated to rely on such vehicles every day in Bujumbura. Most drivers are young men from rural areas with few other job prospects.

Image source, AFP

The number of people injured when two trains collided in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, has risen to 95, emergency services say.

One of the trains was not carrying any passengers at the time.

"The injured were taken to hospitals and there were no deaths," Moez Triaa, a civil defence spokesman told the AFP news agency.

Around 15 ambulance vehicles were at the scene to rush the injured to hospitals. Most of the injuries were minor, with none life-threatening.

In recent years, Tunisia had experienced several fatal train accidents. In 2016 at least five people were killed and more than 50 injured. In 2015, at least 18 people were killed when a train crashed into a lorry.

Nichola Mandil
BBC News, Juba

Image source, AFP

Widespread sexual violence against women and girls in areas of conflict has been fuelled by systemic impunity, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan has said.

A 48-page report described a hellish existence for women and girls and said widespread rape was being perpetrated by all armed groups across the country.

The report found that these attacks were not random opportunistic incidents, but usually involved armed soldiers actively hunting down women and girls.

“Rape carried out during attacks on villages were systematic and widespread," the report said.

"Sexual violence in South Sudan has been instrumentalized as a reward and entitlement for youth and men participating in conflict. It serves as a means of building ethnic solidarity to mete out retribution against perceived enemies,” it said.

While presenting the report in Geneva on Monday, Commission chair Yasmin Sooka said:

“It is outrageous and completely unacceptable that women’s bodies are systematically used on this scale as the spoils of war. Urgent and demonstrable action by authorities is long overdue, and South Sudanese men must stop regarding the female body as 'territory' to be owned, controlled and exploited.”

Barney Afako, a member of the Commission, said it was scandalous that senior officials implicated in violence against women and girls, including cabinet ministers and governors, were not immediately removed from office and held accountable.

The meeting was attended by representatives from South Sudan’s Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. The government has not officially responded to the report.

BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

The Egyptian prime minister has set a fixed price for unsubsidised bread with the aim of controlling rising food prices due to disruption to the wheat supply caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Moustafa Madbouly set the cost of commercially sold bread at 11.5 Egyptian pounds ($0.65; £0.5) for a kilo after prices rose by up to 25% in the past three weeks.

Egypt is regularly the biggest importer of wheat in the world - with Russia and Ukraine accounting for around 80% of imports last year.

Sudan's Al Merrikh part ways with Lee Clark after a 3-1 loss to Egypt's Al Ahly in Africa Champions League.

At least 65 people have been injured when two trains collided south of Tunisia's capital, Tunis. No fatalities were reported and the injured have been rushed to local hospitals, emergency services said.

"The injured were taken to hospitals and there were no deaths," civil defence spokesman Moez Triaa told the AFP news agancy.

One of the trains was carrying passengers and the other one was empty, he added.

Ishaq Khalid
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, AFP

Two people were killed in attacks on two police stations in Nigeria's Imo state. Armed men attacked the police stations with dynamite explosives and freed suspects from detention.

President Muhammadu Buhari said the government is reviewing the security situation in the country's south-east region after the deadly attacks.

He condemned the weekend raids on police facilities and the residence of the leader of a socio-cultural group in the region.

The attackers also set blaze the residence of the leader of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, an Igbo socio-cultural union.

Four of the attackers were killed during a gun battle with police, a police spokesman told the BBC.

President Buhari said the violence was “deeply distressing” and that the security agencies were working to ensure normalcy returns to the region.

He gave no details of the new strategies his government would employ.

The police blame the separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) for the violence.

The group, which campaigns for a breakaway state in the region, has denied involvement in some previous attacks but has yet to comment on the latest violence.

In the past year, deadly violence in the region has intensified with suspected separatists mainly targeting security facilities and personnel.

Dayo Yusuf
BBC Africa Health, Kenya

Image source, AFP

Malawi will on Monday kick off a polio vaccination campaign targeting up to three million children under the age of five.

It follows a wild polio virus outbreak in February after a case was detected in a three-year-old child in the capital, Lilongwe.

Malawi last reported such a case about 30 years ago. The latest one is believed to have come from Pakistan.

It is still unclear how it arrived in the country, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched an immunisation campaign to contain any possible spread.

"All of the essential supplies have been moved where they are needed. This includes, vaccines, protective equipment for health workers, mothers and care givers, as have the indelible ink markers issued to mark a child has received the vaccine," said Janet Kayita, WHO country representative for Malawi.

Health workers will move from house to house to administer the vaccine to all children under five regardless of previous immunisation status.

WHO says the campaign will eventually be spread to all bordering countries of Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique by the end of the week.

Subsequent vaccination phases will expand to more countries targeting a total of 80 million children on the continent.

Africa was declared and certified as free of indigenous wild polio in August 2020 after eliminating all forms of wild poliovirus. This certification has not changed.

Polio is a viral disease that attacks the nervous system and may cause paralysis in a very short time. It can be transmitted from person to person mainly through contamination by faecal matter, contaminated water or food.

Although polio has no cure, it can be prevented through vaccination.

Samba Cyuzuzo
BBC Great Lakes

Image source, Carine Maniraguha

Rwanda’s top poet says that there are still few women in poetry because of a culture that keeps them away from expressing themselves, despite their immense talent.

Carine Maniraguha, who is better known as Carine Poet, says many girls with talent “are not supported or are held back by a bad old culture that girls should not be allowed to talk in public”.

“To date, I am the top poet in Rwanda having won the last national poetry competition in 2018,” she tells the BBC.

The 27-year-old poet who has released poems on love, life, Africa, and women’s challenges, is placing her hopes on Rwandan policies that give space to both poetry and women.

She says her talent is inspired by Rwandan 16th Century poet Nyiraruganzu II Nyirarumaga, who is viewed as the mother of modern poetry in the country.

Nyirarumaga is praised for having pushed for recognition of poetry as an art and encouraging its practice in public. She has poems that are widely known in Rwanda.

Poetry, celebrated globally every 21 March, is “one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity”, according to UN’s cultural organisation Unesco.

An Ethiopian marathon runner staged a daring protest against atrocities in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region when he crossed the line at the New York City half-marathon on Sunday.

Teshome Mekonen celebrated his third-place finish with a protest gesture of crossed arms above his head as he chanted, calling for an end to what he called a genocide in Tigray.

Kenyans runner Rhonex Kipruto and Edward Cheserek finished first and second respectively.

A brutal war erupted in Tigray in November 2020 when the government fell out with the region's ruling TPLF party - and later spread to neighbouring regions.

The UN and human rights groups says thousands have been left dead and millions pushed into hunger.

In 2016, Ethiopian Olympic marathon runner Feyisa Lilesa made a hand gesture - used by the Oromo people to protest against brutal police crackdowns - as he finished second.

He repeated the protest gesture later at a press conference.

More than 10 soldiers have been killed by suspected jihadists in Burkina Faso's eastern region, military sources have said.

It followed Sunday's attack on a military patrol and security team in Natiaboni, a rural town in an area that has been regularly targeted by attackers.

Burkina Faso's military government seized power in January and ousted President Roch Kaboré, blaming him for failing to tackle a jihadist insurgency.

The violence since 2015 has left thousands dead and forced millions to flee their homes.

Image source, AFP

Tributes have poured in for Uganda’s parliament speaker Jacob Oulanyah who died on Sunday while undergoing treatment in the US.

The news of his demise was announced on Twitter by President Yoweri Museveni, who gave no information on the cause of death.

Mr Oulanyah, 56, had held the speaker's position for about 10 months.

His transfer from a local hospital to Seattle had sparked public uproar over the high cost of his treatment abroad.

President Museveni described the deceased speaker as "a good cadre".

Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye said he learned of the death with "sorrow and sadness".

Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine sent "deep condolences to his family".

Veteran opposition politician Kizza Besigye sent "his sincere and heartfelt condolences" to the family.

BBC World Service

Image source, EPA

The Tunisian president has said everyone will have a chance to comment on his proposals for political reform.

Kais Saied - who suspended parliament and seized executive power last year - was speaking on state television.

He said he would hold a referendum on constitutional change in July.

Mr Saied's comments came after thousands of people protested in Tunis on Sunday, some shouting "bring down the president".

Critics say the president is acting to bolster his own authority and wants to restrict civil liberties gained in the Arab Spring revolt of 2011.

He has said the reforms will help end years of government paralysis and weak economic growth in Tunisia.

BBC World Service

Image source, Reuters

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has ended a two-day visit to Mali without any agreement on a date for elections to return the country to civilian rule.

The military government in Mali, which seized power in 2020, said it regretted the lack of compromise at this stage.

Mr Jonathan is mediating in Mali on behalf of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).

He had sought to pin down a date for free elections, having previously said an initially proposed five years was too long.

The Ecowas and the European Union imposed sanctions on members of interim President Assimi Goïta's inner circle earlier this year after the military authorities in Mali junked a plan for February elections.

More on this topic:

• Mali coup: How to solve the conundrum
• Are coups on the rise in Africa?

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Before Them, We is a photographic project by Ruth Sutoyé and also the title of an anthology of poems in which a group of poets of African descent reflect upon the lives of their grandparents and elders and the inter-generational relationships in the families they went on to establish. Ruth and co-editor and poet Jacob Sam-La Rose talk to Matthew Sweet alongside Booker prize winning author Howard Jacobson - the great-grandson of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants - who has just published a memoir exploring his early life in a working-class family in 1940s Manchester where he was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt Joyce before becoming a writer.

Mother's Boy by Howard Jacobson is out now You can find photographs from Before Them, We on https://www.ruthsutoye.com/ and the poetry anthology is published by Flipped Eye.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

In Senegal, west Africa, live a group of chimpanzees led by an alpha male named David. He has already been alpha for three years - a time when leaders here are usually overthrown. To make matters worse, David has no allies - no-one to help him defend his leadership. As the dry season sets in, the group are forced closer together to survive. But David is now surrounded by rivals who all want his crown and are prepared to kill him for it.

David faces brutal battles, has his world engulfed in flames and has to pull off an extraordinary act of deception. In a story of power and politics, can David overcome the threats to his leadership and hold on to the alpha position long enough to sire a possible future heir to his throne?