Human rights advocates with Amnesty International warn that the COVID-19 pandemic is sparking oppressive government responses in southern African nations, just as national lockdowns affect millions of vulnerable people who are losing incomes and fighting off hunger. “With inequality and unemployment so high across Southern Africa, the majority of people…
A police officer from Ghana has been named the United Nations Female Police Officer of the Year, in a ceremony held in New York by the UN’s peacekeeping department. Phyllis Ama Tebuah Osei, who is serving with United Nations Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), was chosen for her work in Jubaland….
South African authorities said Sunday that specialized law enforcement units working on a 72-hour plan are working to track down those responsible for the deaths of 11 people who were traveling with a taxi association in the country’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal province. The 11 people from the Ivory Park Taxi Association…
Egypt is ranked the safest country on the African continent, while six of the 11 least safe countries listed in the 2018 Gallup Global Law and Order report were in sub-Saharan Africa. The annual rankings measure how much people trust their police force, whether they feel safe walking at night…
The Human Rights Watch organization has called on Angolan authorities to investigate what appears to be the summary execution of a criminal suspect by police officers in Luanda, one of dozens of similar cases reported by nongovernmental human rights group Maka Angola. Footage of the June 1 incident, captured by a…
Evan Mawarire, the activist pastor who led Zimbabwe’s #thisflag movement during the last years of former President Robert Mugabe’s tenure, revealed Friday that he is taking legal action against the national police for damages related to multiple wrongful arrests in 2016 and 2017. Beginning in April 2016, Mawarire posted videos…
Police in Uganda confirmed the death of an unidentified man they say was injured when a political rally in Rukungiri turned violent Wednesday – but they tell a starkly different story than opposition leaders who say they were there when police opened fire on the crowd. Patrick Amuriat, an opposition…
Students at the Swaziland College of Technology (SCOT) were forced to leave campus by armed police Tuesday as protests over unpaid stipends and allowances, and shrinking meal plans, turned violent. The SCOT campus in Mbabane was closed down as the boycott evolved into vandalism and a school dining hall was…
The United Nations Security Council issued on Monday a strong condemnation of a terror attack in Egypt that claimed the lives of at least 18 Egyptian policemen. The attack in the Sinai region also left three more injured. The Security Council members expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the…
The torching of two vehicles used by Uber drivers in Johannesburg Thursday night has South Africans alarmed over another escalation in months-long tensions between traditional taxi drivers and their less expensive competition. Witnesses said they watched as armed men accosted the two Uber cars at a commuting spot in the…
The annual Gallup Global Law and Order report, a poll-based measure of how safe citizens feel in their day-to-day lives when it comes to crime, finds a number of African nations where people report they are victims far too often and don’t have confidence in their police agencies. Rwanda, with…
At least 400 migrants, many of them from Eritrea and Ethiopia, are still living on the streets or the wooded outskirts of the French city of Calais months after the sprawling migrant camp there was dismantled by French authorities. Some 200 of them are unaccompanied minors, while another 300 people…
Witnesses in Nigeria said they were still hearing sporadic gunfire after midnight Wednesday as a troubling dispute between police officers in the southern port city of Calabar, and what are believed to be Nigerian Navy officials who got into a traffic altercation with them, escalated into violence. At least three…
Now it’s the South Africans living near the Mozambique border who want the government to build a wall. Sandile Sibiya, a spokesman for the African National Congress Youth League in the northeast region, told News 24 this week that residents want a huge wall to prevent the cross-border crime they…
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda said Friday that his government plans additional surveillance in cities and along highways, a security plan he said has been postponed in favor of other infrastructure projects. He added that the safety of Ugandans and security of their property would be “guarded at all costs.”…