BBC World Service

Residents in an area of Ethiopia's Amhara region that was recently retaken by government troops have accused fighters from the Tigray region of abuses including extrajudicial killings.

The district of Raya Kobo was held for five weeks by Tigrayan forces.

Residents told the BBC that people suspected of belonging to a pro-government militia were targeted.

All sides of the conflict in northern Ethiopia have previously been accused of violating international human rights.

A joint investigation done last year by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the UN Human Rights Office said there could also be evidence of war crimes.

Extra-judicial executions, torture, rape, and attacks against refugees and displaced people were documented.

Read more:

• Why the war in Ethiopia has reignited once more

Patience Atuhaire
BBC News, Kampala

Image source, Getty Images

A Ugandan trainee doctor who recovered from Ebola was officially discharged from hospital on Tuesday.

Hudson Kunsa is a final year medical student and a trainee doctor at Mubende hospital.

He shared his journey to recovery with the BBC in an interview.

The thought of death always lurked in his mind, he said.

He blamed the lack of protective equipment for contracting the disease.

Ishaq Khalid
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, Getty Images

The United States has returned 23 looted artefacts to Nigeria.

The Benin Bronzes were handed over to a Nigerian delegation at a ceremony on Tuesday in Washington.

Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed, who received the artefacts, hailed the US and its institutions for the repatriation of the "highly cherished" cultural artworks.

"These artefacts are intrinsic to the culture that produced them. A people ought not be denied the works of their forebears. It is in the light of this that we are delighted with today's repatriation," he said.

The information ministry said the returned artefacts "comprise 21 from the Smithsonian and one each from the National Gallery of Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design".

The repatriation is part of a bilateral cultural property agreement to prevent illegal imports into the US of some categories of Nigerian artefacts.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, said the institution was "humbled and honoured to play a small role in transferring ownership of the art works to Nigeria”, based on ethical consideration.

The items were among thousands of artworks known as the Benin Bronzes stolen from the Benin Kingdom in present-day Nigeria by British colonialists in 1897.

The items were then distributed to various museums and institutions across Europe and the US.

Nigeria is set to receive more such artefacts from The Netherlands, the UK and Germany.

The West African country says it will soon launch an international traveling exhibition with the artefacts ''in a manner that will win more friends and promote greater goodwill for Nigeria and the ethnic groups that produced [them]".

Read more on the Benin Bronzes:

• Nigeria's opportunity for return of Benin Bronzes
• 'My great-grandfather sculpted the looted treasures'
• University returns 'looted' bronze to Nigeria

Our proverb of the day:

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Deaths of children in The Gambia, linked to Indian-made cough syrups, raises concerns about regulation.

Nigerian presidential candidate, Peter Obi, says that addressing security issues in the country is his priority.

That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for now. There'll be an automated service until we're back on Wednesday morning.

In the meantime you can get updates from the BBC News website and listen to our Africa Today podcast.

Here's our proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this photo of the moon over Egypt's capital, Cairo:

Image source, AFP

Alfred Lasteck
BBC News, Dar es Salaam

Tanzania is seeking assistance from the international community and humanitarian agencies to repatriate more than 120,000 Burundian refugees.

They currently live in two camps in western Tanzania's Kigoma region near the Burundi border.

While humanitarians say conditions there may be better than at home, there have been allegations by rights groups and the UN that Burundian refugees have suffered abuses including arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances at the hands of Tanzanian officers in cooperation with Burundian authorities, external.

Neither country has commented on those allegations.

Speaking at a UN refugee agency meeting in Switzerland on Tuesday, Tanzania’s internal affairs minister Hamad Masauni said Burundi needed support to encourage and facilitate voluntary repatriation.

"In order for this plan to be successful, all has to be restored in Burundi. The most important thing is to support Burundi and make it a favourite for those who seek refuge in Tanzania,” he said.

In 2006 and 2007, Tanzania granted citizenship to 160,000 Burundian refugees.

Ishaq Khalid
BBC News, Abuja

The Nigerian military says it has killed more than 30 gunmen, including the leader of a kidnapping gang, during air strikes in the north-western state of Kaduna.

The Nigerian air force said Ali Dogo, known as "Yellow", had fled with his fighters from neighbouring Niger state following military bombardment there.

A spokesperson said the group was traced to a house which was targeted. He said other kidnapping gangs were also hit in Mando in Kaduna state.

There has been no independent confirmation of the military's claims.

The Nigerian authorities have been struggling to stop frequent killings and kidnappings for ransom across the country - particularly in the north-west.

Algeria's Qatar-based midfielder Adlene Guedioura says missing out on the World Cup will "always be a trauma in my head".

Beverly Ochieng
BBC Monitoring

Members of Somalia's journalist union say their leader has been arrested after he openly criticised new government restrictions on the reporting of militant Islamist group al-Shabab.

Abdalla Ahmed Muumin was arrested by armed intelligence officers on Monday evening, according to the Somali Journalist Syndicate.

The government has not yet commented.

Somalia has consistently ranked poorly in media freedom surveys due to threats against journalists by the government and militant groups.

The government says the restrictions are aimed at countering al-Shabab’s sophisticated propaganda campaigns, but Mr Muumin said it would silence some critics.

Since the new reporting rules came into force, the authorities have suspended dozens of social media accounts and banned several websites over their alleged affiliation with the militant group.

Somali internet providers were also ordered to restrict access to the outlets.

Nineteen people have now died in this outbreak but there are no other recorded cases in Kampala.

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

The UN refugee agency says it is alarmed by a surge of deadly inter-communal violence which has displaced thousands of people in the west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

At least 140 people have been killed since July around Kwamouth town in Mai Ndombe province.

The clashes are fuelled by a long-running land dispute, and escalated when chiefs from the Teke community told the Yaka people to pay them more taxes.

The UNHCR says 27,000 people - mostly women and children - have been displaced by the violence.

Some have sought refuge in forests having abandoned their farms and granaries. More than 2,500 have fled across the border to Congo-Brazzaville.

Africa's four qualifiers for the 2023 Women's World Cup all suffer fresh setbacks in their preparations for the tournament.

BBC Focus on Africa radio

The multi-millionaire businessman who is to become the new prime minister of Lesotho says he is going to use his commercial experience to create jobs and tackle corruption which he described as the country's "worst disease".

Sam Matekane formed the Revolution for Prosperity party just six months ago and has gone into a coalition with two others after narrowly missing out on an absolute majority in the election.

He told BBC Focus on Africa radio that retraining the security forces was also a priority as some of its members had been politicised.

The diamond magnate denied there would be any conflict of interest between his business activity and his position as head of government.

"I don't have contracts with government - I have contracts with other companies outside the government," was his response.

Lesotho has had a succession of fragile coalition governments over the last decade.

You can listen to Mr Matekane's interview in the latest edition of our programme here:

Patience Atuhaire
BBC News, Kampala

Image source, AFP

For the first time since Uganda's Ebola outbreak began last month, a patient has died in the capital city Kampala, bringing the total number of deaths since last month to 19.

There are no known active cases in Kampala but this death is the latest confirmation of the spread of the virus from its epicentre in the central region, something worried health workers had urged the government to prevent by placing that region under quarantine.

The man who died of Ebola in Kampala had been identified by health teams as potentially having had contact with the virus, but he then ran away from his village and sought help from a traditional healer in another region, according to Uganda's health minister Jane Ruth Aceng.

The man died at Kiruddu national referral hospital on Friday.

Ms Aceng says the teams who treated the patient were already alert and protected themselves, because he was seriously ill when he arrived on site.

Forty-two people that he may have come into contact with have been listed and are being followed up, the health ministry says.

To date, there have been 54 confirmed Ebola cases in Uganda.

• Read more: What is Ebola and why is Uganda's outbreak so serious?

Ishaq Khalid
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, AFP

There has been public anger in Nigeria after an illegal pipeline was discovered that had been siphoning oil from a export terminal for over nine years.

The line is 4km (2.5 miles) long and runs into the sea. It was found during a clamp-down on oil theft over the past six weeks in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, the state oil company NNPCL said.

The authorities have not said whether the culprits have been arrested. It's unclear how much crude oil had been stolen through the illegal pipeline.

Previously the Nigerian authorities said that the oil-dependent economy loses an estimated 600,000 barrels of crude everyday - roughly 30% of its output - partly due to oil theft.

Oil theft from inland pipes or from at-sea oil refineries is common in the Niger Delta, but stealing oil using a covert pipeline running into the ocean is extraordinary - and suggests a more advanced method used by the thieves.

The head of the state oil company, Mele Kyari, said that the security measures they have been taking are paying off. But outraged Nigerians on social media are asking why such a pipeline was able to operate for years undetected.

Police in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, shot and injured a man on Tuesday morning during a suspected bank robbery in a suburb outside the city centre.

Three people, including a customer and security guards, were rushed to hospital after being stabbed by the suspect, according to local media reports.

The reports say the suspect was shot by police officers manning the branch of Equity Bank.

He was taken to hospital for treatment, a local police boss is quoted as saying by the Daily Nation news site.

The bank has since been closed as police investigations continue.

Image source, Marilyn Nance / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Artists, performers and intellectuals from 55 countries descended on Lagos in 1977, for an event some regard as the peak of pan-Africanist expression.

Known as the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, or Festac '77 for short, the mood of that time has been captured in a new book by photographer Marilyn Nance, external.

She has described Festac '77 as a site of "mutual fascination" during the era of decolonisation, that was "not only a significant moment in history, but in art history" .

Stevie Wonder and Miriam Makeba were some of the 15,000 people in attendance, as these photos show:

Image source, Marilyn Nance / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Image source, Marilyn Nance / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Image source, Marilyn Nance / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Image source, Marilyn Nance / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Also featured in the book is the musical great Fela Kuti, as well as other snapshots of life in Lagos at that time:

Image source, Marilyn Nance / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Image source, Marilyn Nance / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Image source, AFP

A millionaire businessman is to be the next prime minister of Lesotho, leading a coalition government following an agreement between his party and two smaller rivals.

Sam Matekane's Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) party, founded earlier this year, was five seats shy of an absolute majority in Friday's general election - so it is forming a coalition with runners-up Alliance of Democrats (AD) and Movement for Economic Change (MEC).

Mr Matekane announced the new coalition government on Tuesday accompanied by AD and MEC leaders - telling reporters they promise to deliver economic growth, more jobs, better infrastructure, a reduction in government ministries and new rules making public servants declare their assets.

The tycoon is a political novice but is well regarded in business circles, and made his money in the diamond, construction and transport industries.

Lesotho has had a succession of fragile coalition governments in the last decade, so this newest administration hopes its political reforms can usher in change.

A recent scandal saw ex-Prime Minister Thomas Thabane and his wife Maesaiah Thabane accused of murdering his estranged wife, but the case was dropped in July, external.