Congo’s Mount Nyiragongo erupted for the first time in nearly two decades Saturday, turning the night sky a fiery red and sending lava onto a major highway as panicked residents tried to flee Goma, a city of nearly 2 million.

Last month the World Health Organization urged African nations not to destroy expired doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine after several countries received doses from India with a very short shelf life. But this week, WHO reversed its position and said that the vaccines should be destroyed.

At least 10 civilians were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s restive east this week, a local administrator and a rights group said, blaming the violence on the ADF militia.

The start of the corruption trial of South Africa’s scandal-tainted ex-president Jacob Zuma, which was slated to start yesterday, has been postponed to May 26, a judge said.

A child no older than three laid to rest sideways in an earthen grave 78,000 years ago, legs carefully tucked up against its tiny chest, is the earliest known human burial in Africa, researchers reported Wednesday.

Doctors Without Borders yesterday described “alarming” malnutrition in parts of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region and said the situation was likely to worsen with the coming rainy season.

At least 11 people were killed on Sunday when some train carriages derailed in Egypt's Qalyubia province north of Cairo, the health ministry said in a statement.

Neither the driver nor the assistant of an Egyptian train that crashed at speed into another last month were at the controls during the deadly accident, the prosecution service said yesterday.

Six civilians died and seven more were injured yesterday when an Al-Shabaab suicide bomber blew himself up outside a cafe in Somalia, police and witnesses said.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of an ancient city in the desert outside Luxor that they say is the “largest” ever found in Egypt and dates back to a golden age of the pharaohs 3,000 years ago.

One army officer and 10 soldiers were killed in Nigeria’s Benue state in what a spokesman said was an unprovoked attack on Thursday.

Niger’s defence ministry said Sunday that four of its soldiers had been killed the day before in twin “terrorist” attacks in the country’s southeast, the day after President Mohamed Bazoum was sworn in.

Four United Nations peacekeepers were killed Friday when suspected jihadists staged a major attack on their camp in Aguelhok, northern Mali, the UN mission said.

The G7 group of leading nations yesterday called for the “swift” withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Ethiopia’s conflict-hit northern Tigray region, as the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned of a prolonged stalemate.

The stranded container ship blocking the Suez Canal for almost a week was re-floated on Monday and is currently being secured, Inchcape Shipping Services said, raising hopes the busy waterway will soon be reopened.

More than 180 people including expatriate workers are trapped inside a hotel in a northern Mozambique town under siege by insurgents for three days, workers and security sources said Friday.

Fourteen-year-old Mibrak Esayus recalls the day last November when she says Eritrean soldiers burst into her home in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and killed her mother and father.

Libyan militia leader Mahmoud al-Werfalli, wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, was shot dead in the eastern city of Benghazi on Wednesday, security sources said.

A dozen top United Nations officials called for a stop to indiscriminate and targeted attacks against civilians in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, particularly calling out reports of rape and “other horrific forms of sexual violence.”

Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Friday the country should unite and avoid pointing fingers after the death of John Magufuli, her Covid-19 sceptic predecessor, urging the east African country to look forward with hope and confidence.