NEWS - The African Mirror

Jun

25

2026

UN confirms 838 victims of sexual violence, warns of crimes against humanity in Darfur

NEWS

GENEVA/JOHANNESBURG — Behind every figure in the United Nations’ newest accounting of Sudan’s war lies a name, a face, and a family permanently altered. A report issued by the UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday documents at least 546 verified incidents of conflict-related sexual violence since fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted in April 2023, affecting at least 838 victims — a toll the UN itself insists is only a fraction of the true devastation. “A report we have just issued this morning lays bare the brutality and magnitude of conflict-related sexual…

Jun

25

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

SANDF’s camouflaged sentinels strike back against the syndicates bleeding South Africa dry

NEWS

UNDER a starlit Limpopo sky, soldiers lying in wait on the riverbed watched two sets of headlights cut through the bush toward the water's edge. Within minutes, gunfire cracked across the riverbank. By morning, two more stolen vehicles - a Toyota Fortuner and a Nissan Navara, together worth almost R1.7 million - had been wrestled back from a smuggling syndicate that had readied donkeys on the South African bank to haul the loot across the river into Zimbabwe. It was the kind of close-quarters, high-stakes confrontation that has come to define life along South Africa's most porous frontier - and…

Jun

25

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

43 doors in Dubai: How a Bongo heir built an empire while running Gabon’s treasury

NEWS

FOR half a century, the Bongo name was Gabon's shorthand for power without consequence. The 2023 coup that toppled President Ali Bongo Ondimba was meant to close that chapter. A new cross-border investigation suggests the family's appetite for offshore wealth never read the memo. According to a sweeping investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), carried out as part of its OpenLux project, Fabrice Albert Andjoua Ondimba Bongo — son of Gabon's late strongman Omar Bongo — quietly built a luxury real-estate empire in Dubai worth roughly $15 million, even as he sat at the very centre…

Jun

24

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

DRC Ebola outbreak surges: more than 1,000 confirmed cases and 267 deaths in first month, UN warns

NEWS

THE Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is spreading at an unprecedented rate, producing the largest number of confirmed cases recorded in the first month of any recent African outbreak, United Nations humanitarian agencies said. World Health Organization (WHO) emergency chief Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, who returned last week after a month in the DRC, said official figures show 1,048 confirmed cases and 267 deaths as of Monday. “This is the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola disease outbreak in Africa,” he said. The outbreak, declared on 15 May and caused by the…

Jun

24

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

After a year of mortuary limbo, courtroom combat, Lungu family wishes prevail

NEWS

EDGAR Lungu will be buried in South Africa, not Zambia, after Zambia’s government formally abandoned any further legal challenge to a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that handed the late president’s family the final word on where he rests. The concession, delivered by Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha within hours of Tuesday’s judgment, removes the last procedural obstacle standing between the Lungu family and a burial they have fought for since the former president died in a Pretoria hospital on 5 June 2025. “We accept the judgment, although we don’t agree. But we respect the law. We accept and obey what…

Jun

24

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Blue lights, broken trust: Ex-lover tells how EMPD crew stole R14.9m in gems – and sold them for R110,000

NEWS

ON Tuesday, a guarded voice relayed over an audio link - disguised to spare its owner’s life - walked the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry through the anatomy of a betrayal: how a love affair with a senior Ekurhuleni police officer curdled into a staged “police operation” that stripped a Johannesburg gem owner of stones valued at nearly R15-million, sold for a fraction of that sum and carved into five identical slices of cash. The witness, protected behind the pseudonym Witness K, is an inspector in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department’s VIP protection unit. She is also, by her own admission,…

Jun

23

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

The ghost G-Wagon: how a Nigerian-American allegedly ran a $320,000 diaspora car scam

NEWS

OPERATIVES of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission's (EFCC) Ilorin Zonal Directorate have arrested a Nigerian-American businessman, Adegoke Oluwatobi Adams, over an alleged cross-border vehicle import fraud that investigators say drained more than $320,000 — roughly ₦434.88 million — from two Nigerians who believed they were buying a brand-new 2024 Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG from the United States. The vehicle, the EFCC says, never arrived. Neither, in the end, did any vehicle at all. Adams, who holds dual citizenship of Nigeria and the United States, is being investigated for alleged criminal breach of trust and obtaining money by false pretence, the…

Jun

23

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Drama at Entebbe Airport: Kenya, east African human rights lawyer denied entry

NEWS

MARTHA Karua's flight touched down at Entebbe International Airport on Monday morning with one purpose: to stand alongside two embattled colleagues, jailed opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye and detained former Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, as Uganda's courts decided their fates. She never made it past the immigration desk. Within minutes of landing, the Kenyan senior counsel and former Justice Minister was stopped, separated from her phone, and held incommunicado, before being marched back onto a return flight to Nairobi. No warrant was produced. No charge was laid. No reason was given. By Monday afternoon, one of East Africa's most…

Jun

23

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Cocaine, cash, blue lights: how tender kingpin, police-linked CEO allegedly struck a 5kg drug deal

NEWS

SOUTH Africa’s Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System was confronted on Monday with its most explosive evidence to date: a documented trail of WhatsApp messages, voice notes and video footage that, according to chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC, shows Medicare24 chief executive Mike van Wyk and imprisoned tenderpreneur Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala discussing the sale of five kilograms of cocaine. The disclosure lands fifteen months into a commission already strained by testimony on police capture, tender fraud and political assassination. But Monday’s session, held at the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College…

Jun

23

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Phosa defends Didiza: former ANC treasurer general says speaker’s decision to “abide” was constitutionally sound amid impeachment crisis

NEWS

FORMER ANC Treasurer-General Dr. Mathews Phosa has issued a robust defense of National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza's controversial decision not to oppose President Cyril Ramaphosa's urgent interdict seeking to halt the impeachment committee, declaring the move was "legally sound, constitutionally appropriate, and entirely consistent with the institutional responsibilities of her office." In a statement released Monday, Phosa dismantled the criticism mounting against Didiza, arguing that detractors fundamentally misunderstand both the legal effect of a "notice to abide" and the Speaker's constitutional role in Section 89 proceedings. Phosa's central argument cuts to the heart of the public confusion: "A notice to…