Dorcas Wangira
Africa health correspondent

Image source, AFP

Kenya’s security minister says the deaths of more than 300 people linked to a doomsday cult in the Shakahola forest is the worst security breach in the country’s history.

Ten more bodies were exhumed from the forest on Tuesday raising the death toll to 360.

Appearing before a Senate committee, the minister, Prof Kithure Kindiki, further said that the suspected cult leader, Paul Mackenzie Nthenge’s activities, were reported from as early as 2020.

“A report was filed at the Langobaya police station. No action was taken. Some of the officers and judicial officers must answer that question,” he said.

At least 339 people linked to the Good News International Church are believed to have either starved themselves to death, were badly beaten or strangled at the Shakahola forest in south-eastern Kenya.

The cult leader, Mr Mackenzie, preached that the world was about to end and allegedly convinced his followers to starve to death so they could see Jesus.

Mr Mackenzie has not yet been charged officially.

Muthoni Muchiri
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Nigeria's drug law enforcement agency has ordered an immediate crackdown on the illegal sale and use of nitrous oxide - also known as laughing gas.

In a statement on their website, external, the head of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Gen. Mohamed Marwa, said the strict decision "follows analysis of the effects on those who abuse the substance".

Nitrous oxide is commonly used as an anaesthetic in medicine and dentistry, and in whipped cream cannisters.

The gas can make the user relaxed, giggly, light-headed or dizzy.

However, there are some serious health effects associated with the continued use of the gas such as headaches and in more serious cases fainting.

The agency urged parents and guardians to remain attentive to their children's actions adding that it "poses threats to their mental and overall wellbeing".

Tea pickers have been allowed to continue with a Scottish court claim against James Finlay Kenya Ltd.

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, AFP

More than 800 people were killed in attacks in June 2023 across Nigeria according to a new security report.

The report, released by Beacon Consulting, a security risk management and intelligence organisation, indicated that 460 incidents were recorded including 239 abductions.

The attacks, according to the report, occurred in 234 local government areas in Nigeria’s 36 states as well as the capital, Abuja.

President Bola Tinubu promised to make security a top priority in the country but the first month of his administration has already experienced a high number of attacks.

The government is still struggling to find answers to incessant attacks by Islamist groups, bandits and other criminal gangs despite the appointment of new security chiefs.

On Saturday, nearly 40 people were killed in separate attacks on communities in central Benue and Plateau states.

The police in Benue state told the BBC that more corpses are still being recovered.

Read more about insecurity in Nigeria:

• Nigeria's security crises - five different threats
• Nigeria's kidnapping crisis: Should ransom payments be banned?

Image source, Getty Images

India's Health Minister, Mansukh Mandaviya, says regulators have taken action against more than 100 pharmaceutical companies in response to deaths linked to cough syrups last year.

Last year, Indian-made cough medicine was blamed for dozens of child deaths in The Gambia and Uzbekistan.

After inspections of manufacturing plants, the minister said production had been stopped at 31 companies. Product licences have been cancelled or suspended at a further 50 firms.

The Indian government has previously said it would make tests mandatory for cough syrups before they were exported.

India sees itself as the pharmacy of the world, with exports of medicines last year worth more than $24bn (£18.6bn).

Read more:

• Gambia cough syrup scandal: Police investigate deaths linked to Indian medicine
• Maiden Pharmaceuticals: Gambia panel says India firm culpable for cough syrup deaths

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Image source, Getty Images

Kenya's ministry of foreign affairs has said that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's visit has been pushed to Wednesday to allow the finalisation of some unnamed bilateral agreements.

President Raisi was scheduled to arrive in Kenya on Tuesday morning, the first stop of an Africa tour that was supposed to also take him to Uganda and Zimbabwe.

"The schedule of the president has now been reviewed to allow for the finalisation of key [memoranda of understanding] that are central to the furtherance of relations," the ministry said in a statement shared on Twitter.

It said after his arrival, Mr Raisi would hold a meeting with his host President William Ruto to review and re-energise bilateral relations between the two countries.

Earlier, the Kenyan presidency had said the president's visit had been rescheduled without giving reasons.

Iran's embassy in Kenya is yet to issue a statement over the postponed visit.

Samba Cyuzuzo
BBC Great Lakes

The Rwandan army says it is “deeply saddened” by the death of one of its soldiers killed by “armed elements” while on patrol with UN forces in Central Africa Republic (CAR).

The attack on the forces happened on Monday in Haute-Kotto province north-east of CAR, the UN says in a statement.

“Three armed elements were killed and one captured,” it continues.

The UN mission in CAR’s head, Valentine Rugwabiza, has condemned the attack on the peacekeepers, describing it as “outrageous”.

Rwandans make up around 2,000 soldiers out of the 17,000 UN peacekeepers in CAR.

Rwanda also has around 2,000 troops in CAR sent on a bilateral agreement.

These troops, along with Russian Wagner mercenaries, played a key role in repelling rebels who threatened to capture the capital, Bangui, in 2021.

Image source, Yunga

Uganda’s Anatoli Kirigwajjo is the founder and CEO of Yunga, a local digital security network that enhances neighbour-to-neighbour safety. He was recently awarded "The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation" dedicated to developing African innovators.

Yunga works by connecting neighbours to one other and to police within a 20km-radius - through a physical device, smartphone app or SMS service, providing security at a low cost.

The award, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK, is granted after participants go through an eight-month period of training and mentoring.

“I developed Yunga after losing $1,300 worth of assets in a break-in, with little chance of the thieves being caught. We hope that with our household networks, communities will become harder targets for criminals. This will ensure safety, which in turn will create the space for economic activities to thrive,” says Mr Kirigwajjo.

So far, Yunga has prevented over 180 cases of community crime and they have plans to expand to additional African markets like Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.

Listen to the full interview on BBC's Newsday.

Six people are thought to be missing after a building collapsed in the Guinean capital, Conakry, the AFP news agency reports.

The apartment block tumbled onto five construction workers and a child, the report adds.

The block is thought to be part of a government social housing project for public sector workers.

"None of the trapped people are responding to calls from rescue teams but we remain hopeful of a miracle," an unnamed official told AFP.

Fifa readmits Zimbabwe to international football after creating a temporary committee to govern the game until June 2024.

BBC World Service

The World Food Programme (WFP) says it is rapidly boosting its support on the Chad-Sudan border to deal with thousands of people fleeing fighting between Sudanese military factions.

The UN agency says about a 250,000 people have fled to Chad since the conflict began in April.

In the last week alone, 20,000 have crossed from the Darfur region to the Chadian border town of Adré.

The WFP says many are arriving seriously wounded.

There are reports that fleeing civilians are being deliberately targeted, with an increasingly ethnic dimension to the violence.

Earlier, the campaign group, Human Rights Watch, called on the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes committed in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, including the killings of dozens of civilians.

Nomsa Maseko
BBC News, Johannesburg

Image source, Getty Images

Eight South African police officers allegedly implicated in the assault of civilians on the side of a Johannesburg motorway have been suspended.

Earlier this month, the officers attached to the VIP protection unit, assigned to protect Deputy President Paul Mashatile, were filmed dragging, external the civilian-clothed, military trainees out of their vehicle and beating them.

One of the men was left unconscious after a kick in the head. It's still unclear what sparked the attack.

The video caused outrage in a country where questions have been raised about why the country’s political elite need such protection when ordinary South Africans bear the brunt of crime.

Deputy president Mashatile, who said he wasn’t present at the time of the incident, condemned what he described as the “unnecessary use of force against unarmed civilians”.

The police’s spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said the officers would be subjected to disciplinary procedures and said that her department would not discuss the matter further.

BBC World Service

Image source, Getty Images

A Libyan court has jailed 37 people convicted of human trafficking - following the deaths of 11 migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.

Five members of the criminal gang were sentenced to life in prison - others received between one and 15 years.

All had been involved in organising a dilapidated boat that was supposed to take the migrants to Italy.

Rights groups say many migrants experience horrific treatment there – both at the hands of smuggling gangs and inside state-run detention centres.

Libya has been plagued by conflict and chaos since Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011.

Warren Bull
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has upheld an appeal by the South African runner, Caster Semenya, against the international governing body for athletics.

The court said she'd been discriminated against because of a requirement that she should artificially reduce her naturally high testosterone levels in order to compete in women's races.

Semenya is a double Olympic champion in the 800m event - but her refusal to medically reduce her hormone levels led to her being barred from competing at this distance since 2019.

She had argued that the rules enforced by World Athletics violated her right to freely compete in women’s sports, despite her being legally identified as female at birth, and identifying as female all her life.

Read more here.

Nkechi Ogbonna
West Africa Business Journalist, BBC News

Image source, NNPC

Nigeria's state-owned oil company says an oil tanker capable of carrying 800,000 litres of smuggled crude has been intercepted offshore while heading to Cameroon.

It said the vessel would be destroyed as a deterrent.

Nigeria's state-owned oil firm said the oil had been stolen from a well in the south-western state of Ondo.

Oil theft from pipelines and wells in the Niger Delta is a major problem for the Nigerian economy, robbing it of much needed revenue.

The oil company said that the Nigerian registered tanker had been operating in what it called stealth mode for the last 12 years.

Read more on oil theft in Nigeria:

• Nigeria's stolen oil, the military and a man named Government
• Nigeria's illegal oil refineries: Dirty, dangerous, lucrative

15:30 - Correction - this post has been amended to say the ship was capable of carrying 800,000 litres of oil, not that 800,000 litres of oil were on board

BBC World Service

The campaign group Human Rights Watch has called on the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes committed in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, including the killings of dozens of civilians.

It said this happened during an ethnically motivated attack on a town; homes were looted and set ablaze.

The rights group says Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied Arab militias carried out the attack in late May which officials said left 97 people dead.

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The BBC's Alice Cuddy witnesses 86 migrants being pulled to safety from an overcrowded rubber boat.

A coroner has ruled the three Britons who died in the 2019 crash in Ethiopia were killed unlawfully.

Mali is targeting its first Olympic medal after qualifying for Paris 2024 by finishing third at the U23 Africa Cup Of Nations.