By AP More than a million Muslims are gathering for the hajj pilgrimage, which is taking place in the shadow of the Middle East war, as animosity smoulders across the region despite a fragile ceasefire. Muslim worshippers performed night prayers in Mecca on Friday in the final days before the Hajj, one of biggest gatherings on the Islamic calendar. Pilgrims were seen performing Tawaf, the ritual of walking seven times around the Holy Kaaba in a counter-clockwise direction. Once a year, large numbers of Muslim pilgrims converge in Saudi Arabia, uniting in religious rituals and acts of worship as they…
Author: Montage Africa
By AFP With Eid-al Adha just days away, customers at a sheep market in Ivory Coast’s capital Abidjan are hoping to buy sheep to sacrifice for the Muslim festival. But supply is significantly down on last year and traders are driving hard bargains. Buyers trudged through a muddy market in Abidjan, looking for the best-priced sheep to be sacrificed for Eid al-Adha, with traders driving hard bargains in the run-up to the Muslim festival. Prices have shot up this year and animals are harder to come by as Ivory Coast’s usual supply from neighbouring Sahel countries has been hit by…
By AFP Ethiopia holds a general election on June 1, with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed all but guaranteed of victory despite multiple armed conflicts and the economic impact of the Middle East war. Who will win? Abiy has been in power since 2018 and his Prosperity Party (PP) won a landslide — 485 of the 502 contested seats — at the last general election in 2021. That ballot was partially disrupted by the devastating civil war between the central government and the leaders of the Tigray region that claimed an estimated 600,000 lives. Abiy was initially feted for improving civil…
By AFP Nigeria’s president Bola Tinubu will run for re-election in January after clinching his party’s presidential nomination with a landslide victory in the All Progressives Congress primaries. Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu will run for re-election in January, with the leader of Africa’s most populous nation set to be named his party’s candidate on Sunday. After passing the formality of primaries for his All Progressives Congress (APC), Tinubu will be anointed the party’s candidate for the 2027 presidential race at a ceremony in the capital Abuja in a conference centre bearing his name. First elected in 2023, Tinubu has never…
By AFP Romuald Wadagni took the oath of office of Sunday to become Benin’s new president. The former finance minister of Benin, Romuald Wadagni, officially became the country’s president on Sunday, taking over from his former-boss Patrice Talon. Wadagni, an economist with a reputation as a technocrat who embodies continuity with Talon’s two mandates, was elected April 12 with 94 percent of the ballots. His sole token opponent, Paul Hounkpe, was easily beaten, and Hounkpe’s party quickly joined forces with Wadagni’s party in the parliament. The main opposition party, the Democrats, was not able to participate in the elections because insufficient endorsements and…
Three Red Cross volunteers died in the Democratic Republic of Congo from suspected Ebola likely caught while managing dead bodies, the organisation has said. They are believed to have contracted Ebola on 27 March while working in the eastern region of Ituri on a project unrelated to the virus, before the outbreak was identified. The volunteers are among the first known victims of DR Congo’s Ebola outbreak, which has resulted in more than 200 suspected deaths and more than 850 suspected cases. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said they had died after serving their…
“I saw the burial team taking eight of them,” recalls Ebola survivor Patrick Faley. “They put them into a bag and carried them to the burial. I made new friends although they ended up dying. I was the only person that was left there.” This week’s scenes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where medics are scrambling to respond to an outbreak of Ebola, have brought back haunting memories for those who have lived through similar crises. A decade ago Faley found himself on the front line of a similar situation in West Africa – the worst recorded outbreak of…
Back in March, an email landed in my inbox from Irish airline Ryanair asking me if I was ready for my “next Moroccan adventure”. Sprawling along a windswept peninsula where the Sahara meets the Atlantic, the city of Dakhla certainly looked attractive. I would have to make my way to Madrid first, but from the Spanish capital return flights to Dakhla start from just €30 ($35). There are dozens of accommodation options too, from hostels to brand new luxury getaways advertising the area as Morocco’s hidden gem. But, despite what the adverts and websites say, any tourist making the trip…
Not even heavy rain can keep shoppers away from Gikomba, a lively Kenyan market that stands as the largest open-air trading hub in East Africa. Sections of the site were waterlogged on the day the BBC visited, yet shoppers, some wearing rubber boots, still inched their way through the congested pathways, hunting for Gikomba’s speciality – second-hand clothing. The trade in garments imported from the US, Europe and China poses a perennial problem for the East African Community (EAC), a regional bloc of which Kenya is a member. How can the region build a thriving fashion industry when it is…
By Rédaction Africanews with AP Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo used his platform in the 4th edition of the Renaissance Festival in the town of Songon M’Brathé to condemn the imprisonment of political activists. The political and cultural gathering was organised by his African People’s Party – Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI) party which this week re-elected the 80-year-old as its president. “We have many comrades in prison. We must not only think of them, but we must work to ensure they are released,” Gbagbo said. Last October, an Ivorian court sentenced dozens of people to prison for taking part in banned…