Rescue workers in Malawi are recovering more bodies following the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Freddy in Malawi which has killed 326 people.

Soldiers have joined rescue operations and have been rummaging through debris in search of victims swept by mudslides and floods.

The BBC's Rhoda Odhiambo witnessed as troops retrieved a body buried from the mud in Kalika area, near the city of Blantyre.

Large rocks carried by floods from hillsides collapsed on homes and shops following record amount of rains. Many make-shift homes could also not withstand the flow of flood water.

There are fears many victims, especially children, are still buried in the mud.

Temporary shelters have been established for victims of the tragedy. Some 4,000 victims are at Manja primary school in Blantyre where they are also being provided with medical care.

Image source, BBC / Rhoda Odhiambo

The Zambian government has provided two aircraft to help in rescue and distribution of relief aid to victims of Tropical Storm Freddy in Malawi.

Malawi Defence Force confirmed on Thursday the arrival of the planes.

The aircraft will be deployed to hard-to-reach southern areas in Mulanje, Phalombe and Nsanje where many people are feared trapped, deputy chief of military operations Col Lameck Kalenga said.

Disaster management officials told a local news outlet that they have dispatched sniffer dogs to help find victims swept by mudslides.

The death toll from the devastating storm jumped to 326 on Thursday, with more than 200 others declared missing by the authorities.

President Lazarus Chakwera said some communities are yet to be reached.

Image source, Getty Images

Ugandan Catholic pilgrims visiting the popular Namugongo Martyrs Shrine in central region have been cautioned against drinking water from the so-called holy well.

Church authorities say the water can be used for other scripture purposes such as making the sign of the cross, but it is not fit for consumption.

Uganda Episcopal Conference secretary general, John Kauta, on Thursday said although faithful who collect the water claim spiritual healing, health experts have advised church leaders that the water is unclean and unsafe.

“The water in Namugongo is distilled, but it is not safe to drink. This is also because it runs from many places. People can take it and use it for signs, but don’t drink it,” Mr Kauta told state-run New Vision website.

Mr Kauta said the church will in future set up more taps at the well for easier access due to the high demand for the water.

Pilgrims have started arriving at the Namugongo shrine for this year’s Martyrs’ Day celebrations in June.

The annual event pays homage to the 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican martyrs who were executed for their faith on the orders of Kabaka Mwanga of Buganda between 1885 and 1887.

Nigerian Grammy award-winning artist Burna Boy will perform at the opening ceremony of this year's UEFA Champions League final in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Nigerian star will bring energy and signature soulful vibes of afrobeat before the biggest club fixture in football gets under way, UEFA said in a statement.

"The world isn't ready for what we have in store," Burna Boy is quoted as saying, ahead of his performance at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium.

Burna Boy in February performed at the 2023 NBA All-Star halftime show together with fellow Nigerian singers Tems and Rema.

At least five people have died in north-west Tanzania from an unidentified illness, officials say.

Seven cases have so far been reported in Kagera region and the authorities have dispatched a team of doctors to diagnose the disease.

Health authorities in the East African country have described the illness as strange.

Its symptoms include fever, headaches, fatigue and nosebleeds, according to the government's chief medical officer Tumaini Nagu.

"The government formed a regional team of professionals under the Rapid Response Team who are investigating this unknown disease," Prof Nagu said on Thursday evening.

She asked residents in the area to remain calm and avoid contact with infected people.

In July last year, more than 20 cases with similar symptoms were reported in the southern Lindi region. Three people died from the outbreak.

Investigations later identified the disease as leptospirosis, also known as Weil's disease.

Image source, Twitter / Job Sikhala

A court in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, has refused to dismiss a charge of incitement against a firebrand opposition lawmaker.

It paves the way for his trial in the run-up to general elections scheduled for later this year.

Job Sikhala has been held in a maximum security prison in Harare since June after being arrested alongside fellow members of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party.

He was charged for allegedly inciting riots that erupted when opposition supporters clashed with youths from the ruling Zanu-PF party, following the murder of opposition member Moreblessing Ali in June 2022.

The magistrate ruled that there was "overwhelming" evidence against the Zengeza West legislator.

“The court cannot, therefore, ignore all this evidence; for the evidence calls for an answer from accused person," Marewanazvi Gofa said.

Mr Sikhala’s lawyer said they will file an urgent appeal against the ruling, local media report.

If convicted, the lawmaker will be unable to contest the upcoming elections, whose date has not yet been set but many expect will be in early August.

Rights groups and opposition parties have complained of an escalating clampdown ahead of the vote.

Thomas Naadi
BBC News, Accra

Image source, Getty Images

Christian Atsu, the Ghanaian footballer who died after an earthquake hit Turkey, will be buried on Friday in his native Ghana.

Atsu was found dead after the earthquake caused the collapse of his apartment in southern Turkey. He had been playing for the Hatayspor club.

The state-assisted funeral will take place in the Ghanaian capital, Accra.

Thousands of mourners and well-wishers from Ghana and abroad will file past the body to pay their last respects.

The winger played 65 times for Ghana's national team and helped his side reach the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final.

The 31-year-old also played for Premier League sides Everton and Newcastle.

Atsu will be remembered for his love for humanity, and for supporting the underprivileged in the country.

Image source, Getty Images

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has accused Western countries of imposing gay rights on African nations as lawmakers in the country prepare to vote on an anti-LGBT bill.

The bill, introduced earlier this month, proposes tougher penalties for same-sex relations in a country where homosexuality is already illegal.

It has sparked criticism from human rights groups.

In an address to parliament on Thursday, President Museveni said Western threats of sanctions on African countries opposed to homosexuality were hypocritical because the West also has some "weird cultures".

"Western countries should stop wasting the time of humanity by trying to impose their practices on other people," Mr Museveni said.

"Europeans and other groups marry cousins and near relatives. Here, marrying in one's clan is taboo. Should we impose sanctions on them for marrying relatives? This is not our job," he added.

Under the proposed law, anyone who engages in same-sex activity or who identifies as LGBT could face up to 10 years in jail.

Western governments and aid agencies working in Uganda are routinely accused of "promoting homosexuality" in the country, and have repeatedly defended the LGBT community from attacks related to their identity.

Uganda has not prosecuted anyone for consensual same-sex acts in recent years despite strict anti-gay laws.

Nigeria's Kamara Usman says he is 'just having fun' as he bids to reclaim his UFC welterweight title fighting Leon Edwards for the third time.

UN inspectors have been trying to locate about two and a half tonnes of uranium ore.

Alfred Lasteck
BBC News, Dar es Salaam

Image source, RAJABU HUSSEIN

Wildlife officers in Tanzania searching for the body of a lion known as the king of the Serengeti suspect he may have been eaten by hyenas.

Bob Junior, also known as Snyggve, was killed by younger rivals on Saturday - and national park officers had wanted to preserve his body.

He was much-loved by tour operators and visitors to Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, who praised his photogenic looks.

Thought to be around 10 years old, he had been named after his father Bob Marley.

Tanzania Conservation Commissioner William Mwakilema said officers had found the site of the fight but no body.

Trackers were now trying to find the lion’s younger brother Joel, with whom he had ruled.

“If Joel is found dead, we will collect his remains and we have a view of preparing, stuffing, and mounting its skins, a process commonly referred to as taxidermy,” he told the BBC.

“We would have wished to do the same with Bob Junior, but we weren’t so lucky because we couldn’t locate its remains and probably got eaten up by hyenas.”

The commissioner said the good-looking siblings were first spotted together in 2010 - and had gone on to dominate a pride of 22 lionesses.

“The killing comes because of a bid to avoid inbreeding within the same pride, which is a common occurrence in the ecological world,” he said.

Serengeti conservation officer Fredy Shirima previously told the BBC that younger rivals were believed to have killed Bob Junior.

Conservation staff had hoped to arrange a special burial for the famous lion.

The son of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has deleted a tweet announcing that he will be standing for the presidency in 2026.

Muhoozi Kainerugaba, an army general, is notorious for his controversial tweets, which have led to diplomatic spats - and reprimands from his father who sacked him as commander of land forces last year for boasting about how easy it would be to invade Kenya.

The tweeting general has also not hidden his ambition to take over the top job from his 78-year-old father, who has led Uganda since 1986.

Gen Kainerugaba’s tweet, posted on Wednesday, told his more than 700,000 followers:

“You have wanted me to say it forever! Okay, in the name of Jesus Christ my God, in the name of all the young people of Uganda and the world and in the name of our great revolution, I will stand for the Presidency in 2026!”

Image source, Twitter

The BBC’s Patricia Oyella in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, says the 48-year-old army officer, who has trained at prestigious military academies around the world, tweeted earlier in the month along the same lines - and it too was deleted.

That one, posted on 3 March, said: “My great father told the whole world in 1980 that he would go to the bush if the elections were rigged. We believe in the same things... we always have. I'm now informing my countrymen and women. I will stand for the Presidency of Uganda in 2026.”

Image source, Twitter

His tweets about invading Kenya were never deleted from his Twitter account.

It is not clear if Mr Museveni intends to stand again. He won elections in 2021 with 59% of the vote, giving him a sixth term in office.

Analysts say Gen Kainerugaba may want to take on his father’s rival - musician-turned-opposition leader Bobi Wine - by wooing the youth vote.

More on this topic:

• Muhoozi Kainerugaba - Uganda's ambitious tweeting general

The IAEA previously announced that two and a half tonnes of uranium ore were missing.

Maxine Wahome pleads not guilty to killing fellow rally driver Assad Khan at their home in Nairobi in December.

Image source, AFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has begun a visit to Niger by meeting former jihadists who have been rehabilitated through a vocational training programme backed by US funding.

Mr Blinken called it a model for the region, which has been beset by attacks by Islamist militants.

It is the first ever visit to Niger by a US secretary of state, and US officials said his arrival was a show of support for President Mohamed Bazoum, who has allowed Western militaries to operate from his country.

Neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso have kicked out French troops and replaced them with Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group.

The US has described Wagner as a destabilising force and designated it an international criminal organisation.

BBC senior Africa correspondent Anne Soy says the group’s presence in the Sahel complicates joint efforts to tackle extremist violence, which threatens to spread south towards the gulf of Guinea

Mr Blinken is due to meet President Bazoum later on Thursday evening.

Its key commitments now reflect the service is mainly for people of African and Caribbean heritage.

Patricia Oyella
BBC News, Kampala

Image source, Veronica Kayaga

A magistrate in Uganda says there is enough evidence for the trial of a US couple charged with the torture and trafficking of a 10-year-old boy in their care to begin soon.

Mackenzie and Nicholas Spencer, who were arrested in December, also face charges linked to being in Uganda unlawfully and without work permits.

The couple will only be allowed to plead when the case opens before the international crimes division of the High Court in the capital, Kampala.

A bail hearing will be held next Wednesday. The pair have been held in remand at the maximum security Luzira prison for the last three months.

Papers presented on Thursday at Kampala’s Buganda Road Court say that during the trial, the Director of Public Prosecution intends to present video evidence taken by a house maid who worked at the couple's home in Kampala between December 2020 and 2021.

It allegedly shows that the minor under their care was isolated in a cold, tiled room, made to sit in one position naked, fed on frozen food and put under 24-hour surveillance.

The couple came to Uganda in 2017 to adopt children.

Rhoda Odhiambo
BBC News, Blantyre

Image source, BBC/Rhoda Odhiambo

With 36 roads inaccessible because of damaged bridges, Malawi's president has told the BBC that some victims of Tropical Storm Freddy are still not getting aid.

Lazarus Chakwera spoke to the BBC on the side-lines of his visit to the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Blantyre where many of those injured in the floods caused by the storm are being treated.

Image source, BBC/Rhoda Odhiambo

The 67-year-old president says his country is looking for assistance with more medicines and helicopters.

On Wednesday, he declared the devastation caused by Freddy in Malawi, which has killed 225 people, a "national tragedy".

Mr Chakwera commended the work of doctors attending to the injured.

One of those at the hospital during the visit was Ellen Chikoya, a 38-year-old vendor from Blantyre's Mayani township. She told the BBC that her house had been affected by the flooding.

"I’m here to support my neighbour whose child is currently in hospital with injuries. The girl was caught up in some rubble from a mudslide and injured her back and her legs."

Twenty-five-year-old Tania Geverson said she was there because the roof of her house had collapsed on her daughter.

"My four-year-old child was injured this morning. The roof collapsed suddenly. It wasn’t raining but it’s been wet from previous days of rain. My daughter is currently getting X-rays done. I am happy with the support so far," she said.

Zimaya Jamiya, 31, is at the hospital to care for his sister who was injured on Monday.

"She was cooking - while doing so, we could hear a loud noise and we discovered my neighbour’s house was collapsing," Ms Jamiya told the BBC.

"We decided to make a run for it but the pot my sister was using to cook fell on and the cooking oil burnt her leg.

"As we were trying to assist her our own roof collapsed. The doctors at this hospital have been amazing, they are trying their best.

"However at home we don’t have food assistance. We need help with that."

At least 14 primary schoolchildren have been injured in the Zimbabwean city of Kwekwe when their classroom collapsed into a sinkhole.

Desks and chairs were swallowed up and one girl is reported to have been seriously hurt.

The Globe and Phoenix school is close to two gold mines and local authorities have blamed the accident on illegal underground mining.

Classes have been suspended and officials are trying to find other schools for the pupils.

Earlier the news site ZimLive.com tweeted photos taken at the school in Kwekwe, which is about 200km (125 miles) south-west of the capital, Harare:

Kwekwe MP Judith Tobaiwa, a member of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change party, also tweeted that she had warned the authorities about the mining activities on a recent visit to the school:

The MP told the AFP news agency on the phone from the scene of the accident: "They are still blasting and the whole school premises is shaking."

Image source, Getty Images

The Namibian government has shelved plans to serve extra dishes like Greek salad to VIPs during independence day celebrations next week following criticism on social media.

Official events to mark 33 years of independence are being held in Outapi, the capital of the northern region of Omusati, next Tuesday.

A social media storm followed the leaking of the proposed menu in a letter to Omusati Governor Erginus Endjala, who is chair of the committee organising the celebrations.

According to the letter, caterers were to be instructed to prepare the following:

• For the public, the menu included potato salad, butternut, rice, fried beef and fish.
• For the VIPs - such as foreign dignitaries - extras like Greek salad, steamed carrots, maize pap (porridge made from maize meal), mahangu pap (porridge made from millet flour), baked fish and game stew.

The social outrage over the government’s perceived “elitist tendencies” was summed up in Wednesday’s headline in the Namibian Sun: "U-turn on ‘lords and peasants’ independence menu, external".

However, Mr Endjala told the paper that these had only been suggestions.

“We have realised that the proposal was far-fetched from reality. The menu was revised and the public will now have more food than the VIPs,” he is quoted as saying.

Audrin Mathe, a senior officer in the information ministry, told The Namibian, external that the government would be spending less than $134,000 (£112,000) for this year's independence day celebrations.