Thousands of Zimbabweans have come to the UK on a skilled visa programme, but some of them working in the UK's care sector are being exploited by middlemen who keep a large chunk of the money earned, the UK-based Daily Telegraph newspaper reports, external.

Health clinics in Zimbabwe have been facing a crisis in the last year as increasing numbers of nurses leave the country in search of better prospects.

The UK care sector is desperately short of staff and has been recruiting from abroad. But agents working in Zimbabwe and the UK manage to take large sums of money off people who want to work in Britain as well as those who have found employment, the Telegraph says.

“When you are working for an agency [in the UK], they pay you 50% of your total salary,” one worker told the newspaper.

“You are getting paid £14 ($17) per hour, but then these guys will pay you £7.”

After taxes he was left with £4 an hour, he said.

This is technically against the law, but the Telegraph says that many of the employees are too scared to make a complaint.

Read more on the health situation in Zimbabwe:

• Zimbabwe clinics struggle for nurses after exodus to the UK

Tarik Habte
BBC News

The first-ever TikTok creator awards took place in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, over the weekend, held to celebrate TikTokers from sub-Saharan Africa.

The nominees were chosen by TikTok in recognition of the "immense talent and creativity they brought to the platform in the past year", external.

TikTokers - or creators as they're known on the platform - make short-form vertical videos with many of the African nominees showcasing their dance moves, beauty tips and cooking skills.

TikTok's head of content programming in sub-Saharan Africa, Boniswa Sidwaba, said: "With these inaugural awards, TikTok aims to give creators in sub-Saharan Africa the recognition they deserve and to encourage them to tell the African story while spreading joy at all times.”

The winners and runner-ups represented the four regions: West Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Winners

• West Africa - Ifeoma Efiokwu / @e4ma from Nigeria
• Southern Africa - Melissa / @Pilot_onthegram from South Africa
• East Africa - Natasha Gwal / @natasha_gwal from Kenya
• Sub-Saharan Africa - Dennis Ombachi / @theroamingchef from Kenya

Runners Up

• West Africa - Maduakor Chisom Faustina / @berby_picxy from Nigeria
• Southern Africa - Motho Wa Ernest / @.lindokuhle_khoza from South Africa
• East Africa - Niita Abdiqathar / @beautyby.nita from Kenya
• Sub-Saharan Africa - Charity Ezekie / @charityekezie from Nigeria

TikTok's use in Africa shows no sign of slowing down with Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria all registering in the top 10 countries with highest growth in downloads in 2022, external on the Apple App store.

Read more about African TikTokers

• The Maasai TikTokers wowing Bollywood fans

The High Court has said 11 migrants can take their challenge to the Court of Appeal.

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

The military government in Burkina Faso says it is searching for around 50 women who have been abducted by Islamist militants in the north of the country.

It is the first time the government has acknowledged the kidnappings.

The women were seized on Thursday and Friday. They had been gathering leaves and fruit near the town of Arbinda because of a severe food shortage.

Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in September accusing his predecessor of failing to address the jihadist insurgency.

The UN says 1.7 million people in Burkina Faso have been displaced as a result of the violence.

South Africa's Lloyd Harris beats 17th seed Lorenzo Musetti in a gruelling five-set contest to reach the second round of the Australian Open.

A Nigerian doctor who has cultivated a large following on social media through his health advice has revealed that he is recovering from life-saving surgery to deal with a brain tumour.

Dr Chinonso Egemba - who is better known as the Aproko doctor - has two million followers on Twitter.

Many of them have been sharing his video where he describes the diagnosis and the treatment, saying: "I was fighting for my life."

"One thing to understand is that health issues can happen to you regardless of who you are including me," he said.

With his social media accounts he tries to educate people on health matters.

Dr Egemba is also an advocate for improving healthcare in Nigeria.

Sharing a picture of the neurosurgeon who treated him, he wrote: "So many people begged me to leave the country and get the surgery done but something kept me back here because I still had trust in us."

Abdi Dahir
BBC Monitoring, Nairobi

A Somali military court has sentenced a revenue officer to death for the murder of a man following a dispute over a 5,000 Somali-shilling ($9; £7) tax, state TV says, external.

Qasim Duale Abdi shot dead businessman Abubakar Mohamed Nourani, 65, last week in the Hamarweyne district of the capital Mogadishu in front of dozens of onlookers for failing to pay the $9, state prosecutors told the court on Sunday.

The killing sent shockwaves throughout the country and among Somalis online, with even President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud intervening to call for justice for the victim, external.

The case was heard and concluded in one session on 15 January.

Mr Nourani's family and friends thanked the court for the death sentence, saying they were satisfied with how security and judicial services handled the case.

The prosecution told the court that the victim’s business was so small it did not meet the threshold to pay tax, saying the convict was part of an extortion racket in Mogadishu.

The court ruled that the tax officer “deliberately killed the victim”.

The death penalty is legal in Somalia and executions for crimes such as murder are common in the country.

Burna Boy, Davido and Wizkid win at the All Africa Music Awards, while Asake says his prize is a dream come true.

Tunisia's Ons Jabeur aims to win a first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, saying she "does not want to lose any more finals".

Image source, Getty Images

Nigerian singer Brymo has apologised over offensive tweets he made about the Igbo ethnic group in the country.

Brymo, whose real name is Olawale Ashimi, had retweeted a Twitter post which referred to the Igbos, who hail from the south-east of the country, and are one of its largest ethnic groups, as “cowards”.

He also wrote one post where he referred to the Igbo people using an offensive expletive and caused some anger when he said a president coming from the Igbo ethnic group is a “pipe dream”.

In February's presidential election an Igbo candidate, Peter Obi, is gaining passionate support from many of Nigeria’s youth and on social media.

On Monday morning he tweeted that he is "sorry", external and did not mean to offend: "Forgive my assertions that came across as bigoted spewings against the Igbo tribe, I did not mean to do harm, I am sorry!!"

Tens of thousands had signed a petition on Change.org to stop the singer from being on the nomination list at the All Africa Music Award (Afrima) for songwriter of the year, which took place this weekend.

Online, people were furious with Brymo, calling his comments "racist" and "xenophobic".

Brymo, who is from the Yoruba ethnic group, has told Nigerian media he is supporting Bola Ahmed Tinubu, another Yoruba man, in the the upcoming elections.

State media in Cape Verde say 88 people who had been adrift at sea have been rescued.

Two of the migrants died on board the motorised wooden boat which was found off the coast Cape Verde's northern island of Boa Vista.

Six of the migrants were taken to hospital with dehydration, the AFP news agency quoted a local press sources as saying.

The migrants are said to be from Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone.

They had reportedly left The Gambia more than three weeks ago and were headed for the Canary Islands, which are part of Spain.

The vessel drifted hundreds of kilometres out to sea after the engine broke down and was spotted off Boa Vista by a lighthouse keeper on Saturday.

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of West African migrants trying to reach Europe via the Atlantic Ocean.

This is partly because of better policing on other routes and the dangers of travelling overland through Libya.

Spanish officials say last year more than 15,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands by boat.

Senegal's President Macky Sall has said a second road accident this month involving mass casualties has underlined the need for better road safety measures.

On Monday morning, 19 people were killed when a bus and another vehicle collided in the north of the country.

The bus driver was trying to avoid hitting a donkey when the collision happened, a witness is quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

Last week, the president declared three days of mourning after a crash involving two buses left 40 people dead.

The government also banned buses form travelling at night and ended the practice of importing second-hand tyres.

This morning, Mr Sall sent his condolences to the families of those who died in the latest incident.

Image source, AFP

A South African court has halted a private prosecution against President Cyril Ramaphosa initiated by former President Jacob Zuma.

Mr Ramaphosa had gone to court to try and stop the effort.

Mr Zuma accuses the president of failing to act against a state prosecutor and a journalist for allegedly disclosing his confidential medical records.

The interim judgment to halt Mr Ramaphosa's prosecution now means he will not stand in the dock as an accused person.

Image source, Getty Images

Nigerian Afrobeat star Burna Boy won the Best Act in Africa award at the All Africa Music Awards (Afrima) on Sunday in Senegal's capital, Dakar.

He also won the Best Album of Year award.

Fellow Nigerian star Asake took home the Breakout Artist of the Year prize, while Ivorian singer, Didi B, won the Song of the Year award.

Afrobeats stars Wizkid and Davido bagged the Best Act in West Africa award and the Best Male Act in African Inspirational Music award respectively.

The Afrima awards are held every year to celebrate the best music from the continent.

Father Isaac Achi, who was killed during an armed assault on his parish rectory in Niger state, Nigeria, on Sunday morning, had survived a Boko Haram attack 12 years earlier, an obituary in the Daily Trust newspaper says, external.

It is not clear who was behind yesterday's incident, but another priest who survived Sunday's incident said the gunmen were shouting jihadi slogans.

On Christmas day 2011, a suicide bomber hit a church in Madalla, Niger state, where Father Achi was working at the time, the Daiy Trust reports.

More than 30 people were killed and others were injured, but Father Achi was unhurt and then led the memorial service.

He survived several other attacks, including a kidnapping, the Daily Trust says quoting a family source.

Father Achi was the chairman of the local branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which condemned his killing and expressed concern, external about a recent spate of attacks on Christians.

Niger state Governor Alhaji Sani Bello Abubakar condemned the attack, external as “ungodly and inhumane” and ordered local security forces to pursue the assailants.

Nigeria has been battling militant Islamist group Boko Haram - and its offshoots - for more than a decade. Its fighters have targeted both Christians and Muslims in that time.

Image source, AFP

South African authorities are on the hunt for a privately owned tiger which escaped from a property in Walkerville south of Johannesburg.

The female tiger escaped after the fence was cut on Saturday night, local media reported.

It is said to have attacked a person. It also killed a dog and mauled another.

Animal care authorities have urged people not to approach the tiger on the loose for their own safety, as it is dangerous.

Cat Wiener
BBC World Service Newsroom

Image source, Getty Images

A British charity will on Monday morning seek permission from the High Court in London to appeal against a controversial government plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Asylum Aid will argue that the court "erred" in its ruling in December that the scheme was lawful and will challenge the judgment that the country is a safe destination for migrants.

If the court allows the charity's appeal, any flights under the scheme will be further delayed.

The British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman have made curbing immigration via the English Channel a political priority.

In December the High Court upheld the government's decision and curtailed the rights of migrants to challenge decisions to put them on a plane.

Image source, Reuters

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni over the weekend called for a ban on overseas travel by members of parliament and civil servants to save money for priority areas.

He made the remarks while commissioning facilities, external at Uganda Petroleum Institute-Kigumba (UPIK) where the country intends to train local experts in oil exploration.

Uganda hopes to start pumping millions of barrels of oil in 2025 from its vast oil reserves, but the president was unimpressed that the training institute was still incomplete due to a lack of funds

"Tell the civil servants and the MPs [to] stop travelling abroad. Money being wasted in external travel and yet Kigumba is crying for money," he said, according to a footage, external by a local outlet.

The president also suggested a freeze on all allowances, according to the Daily Monitor news site.

A $3.5bn (£2.7bn) crude oil pipeline that will connect Uganda's oil fields to a port in neighbouring Tanzania has been opposed by climate activists. The two East African countries say their priority is economic development.

More on this topic:

• Why Uganda is investing in oil despite pressures to go green

Image source, Getty Images

The African Union mediator in Ethiopia's Tigray conflict, Olusegun Obasanjo, has told the Financial Times , external(FT) that up to 600,000 people may have died in the two-year war.

In an interview with the paper, Mr Obasanjo said the number of the dead was "around 600,000".

The number of the people who died in the conflict is difficult to verify. Researchers have previously estimated the deaths to be in the hundreds of thousands.

On Sunday, the FT quoted the head of Ethiopia's human rights commission, Daniel Bekele, as saying that estimates given by all sides needed to be treated with caution as it was impossible "to know the full number of casualties".

The conflict started in November 2020, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive against regional forces in Tigray - which he said was a response to an attack on a military base housing government troops.

Last November the Ethiopian government and Tigray rebels signed a ceasefire agreement ending the war.

Image source, AFP

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has cancelled plans to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos over the ongoing energy crisis in his country, his spokesman has said.

The country is facing its biggest ever power crisis with people experiencing rolling blackouts of up to six hours a day.

Mr Ramaphosa was due to lead a government delegation to the event, the AFP news agency reports.

But he will instead hold talks with leaders of political parties and the state-run power company Eskom, said presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya.

"President Cyril Ramaphosa has already engaged with the leadership of Eskom and National Energy Crisis Committee (NECCOM) and those meetings will continue," he said.

Read more on this topic:

• South Africa electricity crisis: No power for up to six hours