East Africa Archive

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso—Burundi’s ruling party celebrated Monday after its candidate, Evariste Ndayishimiye, was declared the winner of last week’s presidential election. But the leading opposition party says it will contest the results, prompting fears of a return to the violence that plagued the country after President Pierre Nkurunziza’s disputed reelection in 2015, which sparked widespread protests that were met with a government crackdown. Since then, at least 1,200 people have been killed in intermittent clashes with security forces, while 400,000 have been forced to flee the country. Burundi’s election commission announced that Ndayishimiye won handily, with nearly 69 percent of […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Violence is escalating once again in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province, a region long beset by militant groups and intercommunal conflict. The United Nations reported that an ethnic militia operating in the northeastern province might have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity beginning late last year. Meanwhile, another rebel group slaughtered dozens of civilians in a series of raids this week. Between disease outbreaks and inter-ethnic clashes, the mineral-rich province has been a flashpoint for decades. But starting in […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Voters in Burundi went to the polls Wednesday in a fraught election to replace President Pierre Nkurunziza. The main opposition leader is already accusing the ruling party of voter fraud and abuse and threatening to challenge the results even before they are announced, a move observers worry could fuel political violence. Turnout was high Wednesday despite the risk of COVID-19 and a campaign that was marred by attacks on opposition supporters. Human rights observers have accused the ruling party’s youth militia, the […]

A recent survey by Reuters found that across Africa, there is less than one intensive care bed per 100,000 people. The continent’s three most populous countries—Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt—only have 1,920 intensive care beds to service more than 400 million people between them. Just two countries, South Africa and Ghana, accounted for 46 percent of all tests carried out in Africa as of May 7. As recently as April 17, 10 countries in Africa did not possess any ventilators at all, according to the World Health Organization, and just 2,000 ventilators were spread across 41 countries home to hundreds of […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. COVID-19 has reached a camp for internally displaced people outside South Sudan’s capital, Juba, raising alarm that the virus could spread quickly among the thousands living there in crowded conditions. The positive diagnosis of two COVID-19 patients this week is a worst-case scenario for health experts in South Sudan, who warn that sick patients could quickly overwhelm the camp, which has few supplies or health facilities. The country’s already limited health infrastructure was gutted during its recent civil war; there aren’t even […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The mysterious crash this week of a cargo plane registered in Kenya that was delivering COVID-19 relief supplies in neighboring Somalia is threatening to exacerbate existing political tensions between the two countries. After leaving Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, the private aircraft made one medical supply drop before heading to Bardale, a town in Somalia’s southern Bay region. A local Somali official told the Associated Press that a projectile hit the plane as it approached the Bardale runway. The six-person crew, made up of […]

NAIROBI, Kenya—The novel coronavirus arrived relatively late to Africa, where the first case was confirmed only in mid-February. Since then, COVID-19 has swept across the continent, with more than 37,000 cases confirmed thus far. Experts point out that the true number of cases is higher than the official tally in many African countries, though, given their limitations in testing. Somalia, the base of operations for the al-Qaida-affiliated extremist group al-Shabab, is no exception. It announced its first COVID-19 case on March 16 and currently has just over 580 cases, with 28 confirmed deaths from the disease. In response, the Somali […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Zimbabwe was facing a food security crisis even before the coronavirus pandemic began, but a lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19 has exacerbated the country’s economic woes and further restricted the food supply. Now more than half the country’s 15 million people are in need of food assistance. The World Food Program was already assisting 3.5 million Zimbabweans before the coronavirus struck. Cyclical periods of drought and flooding have interrupted domestic food production, while hyperinflation, fueled by the government’s reintroduction of […]