Charles Haviland
BBC World Service Newsroom

Image source, AFP

Civilian suffering continues unabated in war-ravaged Sudan.

Reports say bombs have been raining down for days on homes and civilian neighbourhoods in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state and Sudan's second-biggest city, leading many to flee their homes.

Men in displacement camps said many were out in the open during the rainy season, no organisation could help them, and they feared the fighting would reach them.

In the south of the capital Khartoum, residents say paramilitary RSF forces have ordered hundreds of people to leave their homes, declaring the Jabra neighbourhood a military zone where civilians should not be.

Image source, Chad presidency

Niger’s junta has accused former colonial ruler France of wanting to intervene militarily and reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.

In a statement read on national TV, the junta accused France of planning a strike on the junta with the complicity of some officials of the deposed government.

Soldiers in the West African country announced a coup on national TV last week, saying they had dissolved the constitution and suspended all institutions and closed all borders.

The coup was widely condemned, including by France, the UN and West African regional body Ecowas.

The junta has detained President Mohamed Bazoum inside his presidential palace in Niamey and has previously warned against foreign attempts to extract him.

Chad’s transitional President, Mahamat Idriss Deby, met and held talks with the Niger junta leader, as well as Mr Bazoum on Sunday.

The Chadian leader was on a mission to try to help resolve the political crisis in that country.

The Newsroom
BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who is expected to appear before a judge later on Monday after his arrest on Friday, has announced he is going on hunger strike.

He invited all political detainees to join him.

On social media Mr Sonko said that in the face of so much hate, lies, oppression and persecution he had decided to resist.

He's facing a raft of new charges, including planning an insurrection.

His lawyers said the authorities had not respected the rights of their client.

They also said that the new charges brought against their client over the weekend, cancel out his conviction in June in a case in which he was tried in absentia.

That conviction sparked deadly riots across Senegal.

The Newsroom
BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Haiti has welcomed ''with great interest'' Kenya's offer to lead a multinational force to restore order.

Haiti Foreign Minister Jean Victor Geneus said he appreciated the expression of African solidarity.

The Caribbean nation is suffering from a surge in gang violence and is in a deep security, political and humanitarian crisis.

Earlier Kenyan Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua said a quick fix to Haiti's problems would not be possible, but the mission would aim to stabilise the situation and train a proper Haitian police force.

Mr Mutua said the people of Haiti had suffered enough, and Kenya felt a responsibility to help its brothers and sisters in the African diaspora.

Tom Bayly
BBC News

Image source, AFP

The governor of Nigeria's north-eastern Adamawa state has declared a 24-hour curfew following the looting of food stores and warehouses in the state capital, Yola.

Hundreds of people were captured on video, breaking into warehouses, carrying off sacks of grain, cartons of pasta and other household items.

On the orders of Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, security personnel have been deployed to enforce the curfew.

Last month, Nigeria ended a fuel subsidy regime, leading to soaring food and petrol prices.

The economy has also been weakened by recession and the ongoing fallout from the Covid pandemic.

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Morocco defender Nouhaila Benzina makes history by becoming the first player to wear a hijab at a World Cup.

Look at any fiction prize recently and odds are that you will find a Zimbabwean woman nominated, be it Tsitsi Dangaremba, NoViolet Bulawayo or Petina Gappah. But forget the glitz of the Booker, what is the situation inside Zimbabwe? Reporter Tawanda Mudzonga takes us on a literary tour of Zimbabwe to find out why it has produced so many talented and renowned women writers. Tawanda speaks to emerging authors like Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Valerie Tagwira, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Sue Nyathi among others to explore what their writing can tell us about modern Zimbabwe.

Defence officials say the emails did not contain information that could compromise operational security.

The young woman could face the death penalty if found guilty by a court in Mauritania.

The battle to keep the peace between people and elephants in northern Botswana. The earth’s largest land mammal, the elephant, is an endangered species. Poaching, habitat loss and disease have decimated elephant populations. But not in Botswana, which has the world’s biggest population of elephants. In the north of the country, in the area around the remarkable Okavango Delta (the world’s largest inland delta), elephant numbers are growing and they outnumber people. This can pose serious problems for the human population, particularly local subsistence farmers. A crop raid by elephants can destroy a family’s annual food supply overnight. Elephants also pose a risk to life in their daily commute between their feeding grounds and their water sources. John Murphy travels to the top of the Okavango Delta, to see what efforts are being made to keep both people and elephants safe, and to persuade locals that these giant animals are an asset not a liability. He also explores threats from further afield to this green jewel in the desert, the Okavango Delta, which animals and people alike depend on.

Presenter: John Murphy Producer: Charlotte Ashton Studio Mix: Rod Farquhar Editor: Penny Murphy

(Image: Elephant wading in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Credit: Brytta/Getty)

The winner of Nigeria’s presidential election, Bola Tinubu is due to be inaugurated on 29 May but the opposition are challenging the results.

Only 27 percent of voters participated in the election, the lowest turnout in the country’s history. And a recent BBC investigation has found evidence suggesting some results from the February election may have been manipulated.

As well as the contested election results, the incoming president faces huge challenges governing Nigeria: the country is struggling with high inflation and an array of security threats – jihadist insurgencies in the north east, kidnapping and banditry especially in the north west, herder-farmer violence, and separatist violence in the south-west. It has huge oil wealth, but its oil industry has a documented history of corruption.

President-elect Tinubu says he'll hit the ground running by cracking down on those trying to split the country. But can this veteran politician who proclaimed "it's my turn" unite it?

Shaun Ley in conversation with:

Nnamdi Obasi - senior Nigeria adviser with the International Crisis Group.

Fidelis Mbah - a freelance journalist based in Abuja

Idayat Hassan - director of the Center for Democracy and Development, a Nigerian think tank.

also featuring:

Katch Ononuju - special adviser to the Nigerian Labour party 's Peter Obi. Rinsola Abiola - an activist in the ruling All Progressives Congress Party, APC, and a supporter of Mr Tinubu.

Produced by Alba Morgade and Ellen Otzen

(Photo: Nigeria's President-elect Bola Tinubu sits at the International Centre waiting to receive his certificate of return by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja on March 1, 2023. Credit: Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A hospital told Sulemana he was 9ft 6in, but nurses couldn't be sure - so the BBC went to find out.

The overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, remembered by the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen.

Jeremy Bowen reflects on the present and the past of the Middle East, after reporting from the region for more than a quarter of a century. He combines first-hand accounts from the front line with an in-depth look into the region's history. He has witnessed endless wars between individuals, religious groups and full-sized states, jostling for military, political and economic power. He has interviewed dictators, fanatics and fundamentalists as well as the ordinary people caught up in their dangerous games. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition . Bowen has made headlines himself and he has paid a personal price, coming under fire and losing a colleague in the course of reporting - on the worst day, he says, in his life.

Producers: Mark Savage and Cara Swift.

The popular revolution in Egypt during the Arab Spring, remembered by the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen. "Not for the first time in history," he says "the passion of the streets was outdone by organization of long established groups - in Egypt, the military, and the Muslim Brotherhood"

Jeremy Bowen reflects on the present and the past of the Middle East, after reporting from the region for more than a quarter of a century. He combines first-hand accounts from the front line with an in-depth look into the region's history. He has witnessed endless wars between individuals, religious groups and full-sized states, jostling for military, political and economic power. He has interviewed dictators, fanatics and fundamentalists as well as the ordinary people caught up in their dangerous games. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition . Bowen has made headlines himself and he has paid a personal price, coming under fire and losing a colleague in the course of reporting - on the worst day, he says, in his life.

Producers: Mark Savage and Cara Swift.

David Attenborough's documentary series which celebrates our planet in all its eclectic wonder. He reveals the greatest woodlands on earth, from the evergreen forests of the frozen north to the deciduous dry forests of the equator.

The Taiga forest is a silent world of stunted conifers cloaked in snow and ice. The trees form a belt that circles the globe, broken only by ocean, and contains a third of all trees on earth. Here, animals are scarce, with just a few charismatic loners like the wolverine and lynx.

By contrast, the broadleaf forests of North America and Europe bustle with life. The most startling illustration happens just once every 17 years, when the nymphs of the periodical cicada burst from the soil in the biggest insect emergence on the planet.

In California, witness the cameras fly up the tallest trees on earth: giant redwoods over 100 metres high. See General Sherman, a giant sequoia, ten times the size of a blue whale, and the largest living thing on the planet. Close by are bristlecone pines, so old they pre-date the pyramids and were already 2,500 years old when Jesus Christ was born.

The baobab forests of Madagascar are the strangest of all. The bizarre upside down trees store water in their swollen trunks and harbour strange wildlife, such as the tiny mouse lemur, the world's smallest primate.