Human rights groups want a moratorium on demolitions and forced evictions of informal settlements under COVID-19 By Nita Bhalla and Emeline Wuilbercq NAIROBI/ADDIS ABABA - Scores of Ethiopian families are at risk of contracting the new coronavirus after authorities demolished their makeshift houses and left them homeless, according to human rights groups. Authorities in the capital began destroying the informal settlements near Bole International Airport in February. They say the settlement in Addis Ababa, home to more than 1,000 people, is illegal. Residents - mostly casual labourers who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19 restrictions - say they bought…

KIM HARRISBERG NDILEKA Mandela was at her home in Johannesburg, South Africa, just before the start of a national lockdown to stem the spread of the coronavirus, when she got the call. A container filled with 10,000 sanitary pads for rural South African girls would not be able to leave Geneva due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a donor told her. "My heart was so sore. These girls are stuck at home, there is no income to buy food let alone sanitary pads. Their dignity and their health are at stake," she said in a phone interview. Ndileka, 55, Nelson Mandela's…

By Nita Bhalla NAIROBI - Thousands of Kenyans in Nairobi are at risk of contracting the new coronavirus after authorities demolished their houses in the midst of the pandemic, human rights activists have said. Authorities ordered bulldozers into the Kariobangi informal settlement in northeast Nairobi recently, demolishing some 600 homes and forcefully evicting at least 5,000 people - including many single mothers and children, said campaigners. The state-run Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NSWSC) claims ownership of the land which it says has been illegally occupied since 2008. Evicted residents say they bought the land from the city council…

By Alice McCool KAMPALA - A Ugandan court has granted lawyers access to 19 LGBT+ people detained for more than six weeks with no legal help after they were charged with risking the spread of the coronavirus. The 13 gay men, two bisexual men and four transgender women were arrested on March 29 when police raided an LGBT+ shelter on the outskirts of the capital Kampala following a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people to control the virus. Human rights groups have said authorities are using the restrictions to target sexual minorities in the east African nation, where…

As governments race to drill boreholes and fill up water tankers, residents want solutions that will last long after the pandemic By Kim Harrisberg and Lungelo Ndlovu JOHANNESBURG/BULAWAYO -  Fifty people and their cattle share the only borehole in Gongu village in southwestern Zimbabwe, meaning frequent handwashing to fight the coronavirus is easier said than done. Across drought-hit southern Africa, COVID-19 has spurred governments to dispatch water tankers, drill boreholes and repair taps - solutions experts and residents of thirsty slums and villages say must last long after the pandemic has passed. "We're calling for the government to do more…

ADAOBI TRICIA NWAUBANI FATI Ibrahim was one of scores of women gathered outside a tent in a remote community of Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, struggling for a chance to get in and receive help. Three years ago her husband was murdered, her first son went missing, and she was forced to flee her hometown of Gwoza in northeast Nigeria when Boko Haram Islamist militants attacked. Struggling to cope, a friend guided her to free counselling sessions set up this year by the NEEM Foundation, a non-profit that helps people impacted by the eight-year insurgency in which Boko Haram has killed more…

KIM HARRISBERG WHEN Zozibini Tunzi marched in the Black Lives Matter protests in New York City, the latest Miss Universe kept thinking how young people in her native South Africa died fighting for the same cause 44 years ago. "South African students were marching against systemic racism," said Tunzi, 26, recalling the 1976 Soweto Uprising when tens of thousands of students protested against apartheid laws that segregated and controlled the black majority. "So many years later, that's still happening, not only in South Africa, but across the world," she in an interview from New York, where she is spending her…

MALAICKA ADIHA Authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo's southeastern mining heartland are boosting efforts to tackle child labour amid concerns that the coronavirus pandemic could drive more families to put their children to work in mines, officials said. Congo is Africa's main producer of copper and the top global source of cobalt, accounting for two-thirds of global supplies of the metal used in smartphones and electric car batteries. Mining accounts for 32% of Congo's national output and the economy has been hard hit by the pandemic, which has slowed demand for metals and other raw materials. The slump means mining workers are…

High rates of femicide make South Africa one of the most dangerous places to be female. With the government failing to protect women, it’s time for a movement that will change the status quo. Alarge chunk of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 – his almost 900-page novel that was published in 2004, a year after his death – consists of relentless, forensic report-style accounts of the murders of women and girls in a fictionalised version of Mexican border town Ciudad Juárez. Bolaño details 112 murders over a five-year period. Mutilated bodies turn up in the desert. They’re often never identified and arrests are seldom…