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The death toll from a mountain of rubbish that collapsed in the Ugandan capital rose to 24 on Monday as rescuers with excavators continued searching for victims, according to the city authority. At least four children are among those killed by the collapse at the Kiteezi landfill Friday, police told reporters. The collapse is believed to have been triggered by heavy rainfall. The precise details of what happened were unclear, but the city authority said there was a “structural failure in waste mass.” Irene Nakasiita, a spokeswoman for the Uganda Red Cross, said there was no hope of rescuing more people alive. It was not clear how many people were unaccounted for. The Kiteezi landfill is a vast rubbish dumpsite in an impoverished hillside area that receives hundreds of garbage trucks daily. The city authority has been aiming to decommission it since declaring it full years ago. It's also a kind of no-man's land in the city of 3 million, attractive to women and children who scavenge plastic waste they aim to sell. Others have built permanent homes nearby. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ordered an investigation into the disaster, asking in a series of posts on the social platform X why people were living in close proximity to an unstable heap of garbage. “Who allowed people to live near such a potentially hazardous and dangerous heap?” Museveni said, adding that effluent from the site is hazardous enough that people should not be living there.

Police hurled tear gas at protesters calling for the president's resignation in the Kenyan capital on Thursday as a new Cabinet was sworn in. The protests in Nairobi were organized by activists upset with President William Ruto even after he dismissed almost all of his ministers and added opposition members to what he called a “broad-based” government. Businesses in the city were closed and public transport vehicles remained out of the central business district where they normally operate. Police also mounted roadblocks on roads leading to the city. The president’s office, where the new ministers were sworn in on Thursday morning, also remained cordoned off. Major towns and cities including the lakeside city of Kisumu — an opposition stronghold that has previously witnessed protests — remained calm with some residents telling journalists they were not protesting because the opposition figures had been incorporated into the new Cabinet. Civil society groups, along with the Law Society of Kenya, called in a joint statement for the upholding of human rights during demonstrations and urged police to refrain from deploying nonuniformed police and using unmarked vehicles. “We reiterate constitutional protection of all persons to peaceably and unarmed to protest, picket and to present petitions to the authorities,” the statement said. Ruto earlier on Wednesday condemned the protests and urged Kenyans to stay away from them, saying those who want change can vote him out in 2027 elections. Also Wednesday, activists planned an “8/8 Liberation March” and warned that demonstrators would treat nonuniformed police officers as criminals. “We shall march for our rights, and tomorrow we shall liberate this country,” activist Kasmuel Mcoure said. Protests in Kenya started on June 18 with initial calls for legislators to vote against a controversial finance bill that was proposing increased taxes amidst the high cost of living. On June 25, protesters stormed parliament after legislators voted to pass the bill. More than 50 people have died since the protests started, according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. The president declined to sign the bill and sent it back to parliament saying he had “heard Kenyans who wanted nothing to do with the bill” but warned there would be revenue and expenditure consequences. Protests continued with calls for the president to resign over bad governance, corruption, incompetence in his Cabinet and lack of accountability. Ruto dismissed all but one Cabinet minister but protests continued.

Seven people were killed and many others were injured during a stampede at a music concert in Congo’s capital Saturday, authorities said. The stampede occurred at the 80,000-capacity Stade des Martyrs stadium in the heart of Kinshasa where Mike Kalambayi, a popular Congolese gospel singer, was performing, Kinshasa Gov. Daniel Bumba said. State television RTNC said seven people were killed in the chaos and some of those injured were admitted to intensive care. Authorities did not comment on what caused the stampede, saying an investigation into the incident was underway. However, the local music management company that organized the event said the chaos erupted when “the security services tried to neutralize some troublemakers.” An estimated 30,000 people attended the concert, which featured several other musicians and pastors, the management company Maajabu Gospel said in a statement. Videos that appeared to be from the scene and broadcast of the event showed large crowds gathered outside the stadium in front of barricades as they waited to enter. Inside, people could be seen rushing to the center stage. Congo has witnessed such stampedes in past years, often blamed on poor crowd control measures such as excessive use of force. Eleven people died in a similar crush at the same stadium last October during a music concert.

Mudslides triggered by heavy rain in a remote part of Ethiopia have killed at least 229 people, including many who tried to rescue survivors, local authorities said Tuesday, in what the prime minister called a "terrible loss." Young children and pregnant women were among the victims in Kencho Shacha Gozdi district of southern Ethiopia, said Dagmawi Ayele, a local administrator, adding that at least five people have been pulled out alive. The death toll rose sharply from the initial one of 55 late Monday. Search operations continued in the area, said Kassahun Abayneh, head of the communications office in Gofa Zone, the administrative area where the mudslides occurred. Ethiopia's ruling party in a statement said it felt sorrow over the disaster. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement on Facebook that he was “deeply saddened by this terrible loss." The federal disaster prevention task force has been deployed to assist in search and rescue efforts, Abiy's statement said. It was not immediately clear how many people were still unaccounted for. Many victims were buried on Monday as rescue workers searched the steep terrain for survivors of another mudslide the previous day. Markos Melese, director of the disaster response agency in Gofa Zone, said many rescuers remained missing. "There are children who are hugging corpses, having lost their entire family, including mother, father, brother and sister," he said. Some women wailed as rescuers attempted to dig through the thick mud with shovels. Landslides are common during Ethiopia's rainy reason, which started in July and is expected to last until mid-September. Deadly mudslides often occur in the wider East African region, from Uganda's mountainous east to central Kenya's highlands. In April, at least 45 people were killed in Kenya's Rift Valley region when flash floods and a landslide swept through houses and cut off a major road.

 At least 72 people, including nine soldiers and a soldier's wife, were killed when armed men attacked a village in western Congo, local authorities said, as violence intensifies between rival communities. Saturday's attack took place in the village of Kinsele, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Kinshasa, the capital. Because of insecurity and poor infrastructure in the region, attacks can take days to be reported. Kinsele is in the Kwamouth territory, where conflict has raged for two years between the Teke and Yaka communities, leading to hundreds of civilian deaths. The attackers were with the Mobondo militia, a group presenting itself as defenders of the Yaka people. “The search continues to find other bodies in the bush,” David Bisaka, the provincial deputy for the Kwamouth territory, told The Associated Press in a phone interview. He added that the army had "succeeded in routing this militia” for the second time in a week. The Mobondo militia first tried to attack the village on Friday. Following Saturday’s attack, the dead included nine soldiers and the wife of a soldier, the head of a nearby village, Stanys Liby, told U.N.-funded Radio Okapi. The conflict over land and customary claims in the Kwamouth territory erupted in June 2022 between so-called “native” and “non-native” communities, according to the advocacy group Human Rights Watch. Tensions flared between the Teke, historical inhabitants of the region, and farmers from various other ethnic groups including the Yaka, who settled near the Congo River more recently. Despite a cease-fire in April 2024 in the presence of Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi, clashes between the communities have continued and even intensified in recent weeks. Congo's defense minister, Guy Kabombo Muadiamvita, on Monday visited Kwango province, where the attacked village is located, to “feel the reality on the ground,” the ministry said on social media platform X. “The province of Kwango is the last security barrier to access the city province of Kinshasa,” the ministry said, adding that the minister “promised to spare no effort” against the militia. Congo's army also struggles to contain more widespread violence in the vast country's east, which has seen decades of fighting between government forces and more than 120 armed groups. Many seek a share of the region’s gold and other resources. Violence in the east has worsened in recent months. Earlier this month, a militia attack on a gold mine in northeastern Congo killed six Chinese miners and two Congolese soldiers.

Nearly 1,000 homes in informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, have been destroyed by gale-force winds, displacing around 4,000 people, authorities and an aid organization said as the city braces for a week of damaging storms. South African weather authorities said Monday that Cape Town and surrounding areas are expected to be hit by multiple cold fronts until at least Friday, bringing torrential rain, strong winds, flooding and possible mudslides. City authorities also warned of storm surges and high waves along the coastline and asked people to stay away from the beachfront. Cape Town's disaster coordination team has been on alert since last Thursday, when the first front arrived. The worst-hit areas are expected to be the poor, informal settlements on the edge of South Africa's second biggest city. Thousands have been displaced in the township of Khayelitsha on the outskirts of Cape Town after strong winds destroyed homes and other structures. The Gift of the Givers local aid organization said it provided 10,000 meals and 3,000 blankets to displaced people in Khayelitsha over the weekend. “The city is doing all it can to address the impacts as quickly as possible,” the City of Cape Town said. Other areas have been flooded and the weather has caused power outages in more than 30 suburbs, the city said. It said it is monitoring dam levels to ensure they don't overflow and would consider a controlled release of some water with more heavy rain expected this week. Cape Town, on the southwest tip of Africa, is often hit by cold fronts coming in from the Atlantic Ocean during its winter months in the middle of the year. They are especially damaging for informal settlements.

With dismay, Martha Waema and her husband surveyed their farm that was submerged by weeks of relentless rainfall across Kenya. Water levels would rise to shoulder height after only a night of heavy downpour. The couple had expected a return of 200,000 shillings ($1,500) from their three acres after investing 80,000 shillings ($613) in maize, peas, cabbages, tomatoes and kale. But their hopes have been uprooted and destroyed. "I have been farming for 38 years, but I have never encountered losses of this magnitude," said the 62-year-old mother of 10. Their financial security and optimism have been shaken by what Kenya's government has called "a clear manifestation of the erratic weather patterns caused by climate change." The rains that started in mid-March have posed immediate dangers and left others to come. They have killed nearly 300 people, left dams at historically high levels and led the government to order residents to evacuate flood-prone areas — and bulldoze the homes of those who don't. Now a food security crisis lies ahead, along with even higher prices in a country whose president had sought to make agriculture an even greater engine of the economy. Kenya's government says the flooding has destroyed crops on more than 168,000 acres (67,987 hectares) of land, or less than 1% of Kenya's agricultural land. As farmers count their losses — a total yet unknown — the deluge has exposed what opposition politicians call Kenya's ill preparedness for climate change and related disasters and the need for sustainable land management and better weather forecasting. Waema now digs trenches in an effort to protect what's left of the farm on a plain in the farthest outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, in Machakos County. Not everyone is grieving, including farmers who prepared for climate shocks. About 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Waema's farm, 65-year-old farmer James Tobiko Tipis and his 16-acre farm have escaped the flooding in Olokirikirai. He said he had been proactive in the area that's prone to landslides by terracing crops. "We used to lose topsoil and whatever we were planting," he said. Experts said more Kenyan farmers must protect their farms against soil erosion that likely will be worsened by further climate shocks. Jane Kirui, an agricultural officer in Narok County, emphasized the importance of terracing and other measures such as cover crops that will allow water to be absorbed. In Kenya's rural areas, experts say efforts to conserve water resources remain inadequate despite the current plentiful rainfall. At Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, professor John Gathenya recommended practices such as diversifying crops and emphasizing the soil's natural water retention capacity. "The soil remains the biggest reservoir for water," he said, asserting that using it wisely requires much less of an investment than large infrastructure projects such as dams. But soil needs to be protected with practices that include limiting the deforestation that has exposed parts of Kenyan land to severe runoff. "We are opening land in new fragile environments where we need to be even more careful the way we farm," Gathenya said. "In our pursuit for more and more food, we are pressing into the more fragile areas but not with the same intensity of soil conservation that we had 50 years back."  

Some 66.7 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa region are highly food insecure, according to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) released on Wednesday. Out of the total, 39.1 million were from six of the eight IGAD member states, the FAO and IGAD said in the June report. These are Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. Other countries where people are food insecure in the region are Burundi, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The number of food-insecure people in June, 66.7 million, fell almost 11 percent from the previous month's 74.9 million, according to the two institutions. "Conflict, inflation, disease outbreaks and poor access to nutritious diets and safe water continue to severely impact the state of food security and nutrition in Eastern Africa," the report said. Countries like Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan experienced heavy rainfall, as flooding exacerbated by lingering effects of previous droughts heightened severe levels of food insecurity, according to the two institutions. The report said that the East and Central Africa region hosts a substantial number of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), especially in countries such as Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, where people grapple with food insecurity due to restricted access to essential resources and limited livelihood opportunities. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, severe climate events such as flooding and drought, conflicts and disease outbreaks are continuing to cause displacements and push millions of people into acute food insecurity.

 Female suicide bombers targeted a wedding, a funeral and a hospital in coordinated attacks in northern Nigeria that killed at least 18 people, local authorities said Sunday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the the attacks in Borno state, which has been heavily affected by the insurgency launched in 2009 by Boko Haram. The extremist group previously has used women and girls in suicide bombings, prompting suspicions that some attackers come from the many thousands of people the militants have kidnapped over the years, including schoolchildren. The first suicide bomber detonated a device during a marriage celebration in the northeastern town of Gwoza, Barkindo Saidu, director-general of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, told reporters. “Minutes later, another blast occurred near General Hospital,” Saidu said, and the third bomber at the funeral service was disguised as a mourner. Children and pregnant women were among those killed. At least 30 others were wounded, and Saidu said that injuries included abdominal ruptures and skull fractures. Russian bombers fly over Belarus amid Ukraine tensions Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said in a statement that the attacks were “desperate acts of terror” and “an isolated episode." The insurgency, which has spilled across borders around Lake Chad, has killed more than 35,000 people, displaced 2.6 million others and created a humanitarian crisis. Boko Haram, with one branch allied to the Islamic State group, wants to install an Islamic state in Nigeria, West Africa’s oil giant of 170 million people divided almost equally between a mainly Christian south and a predominantly Muslim north. US says drone kills IS bombers targeting Kabul airport The resurgence of suicide bombings in Borno raised significant concerns about the security situation in the region. Authorities imposed a curfew in the city. Gwoza is near Chibok, where 276 schoolgirls were abducted in 2014. Nearly 100 of the girls are still in captivity. Since then, at least 1,500 students have been kidnapped across Nigeria as armed groups find the practice a lucrative way to fund their criminal activities and take control of villages. 3 dead US fire bombers retrieved from Australian forest

Female suicide bombers targeted a wedding, a funeral and a hospital in coordinated attacks in northern Nigeria that killed at least 18 people, local authorities said Sunday. The first bomber detonated during a marriage celebration in the northeastern town of Gwoza, Barkindo Saidu, director-general of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, told reporters. “Minutes later, another blast occurred near General Hospital,” Saidu said, and the third bomber at the funeral service was disguised as a mourner. Children and pregnant women were among those killed. At least 30 others were wounded, and Saidu said injuries included abdominal ruptures and skull fractures. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the the attacks. Borno state has been heavily affected by the insurgency launched in 2009 by the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group. In the past, Boko Haram has used women and girls in suicide bombings, prompting suspicions that some attackers come from the many thousands of people the extremists have kidnapped over the years, including schoolchildren. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu in a statement called the attacks “desperate acts of terror” and “an isolated episode." The insurgency, which has spilled across borders around Lake Chad, has killed over 35,000 people, displaced over 2.6 million and created a massive humanitarian crisis. Boko Haram, with one branch allied to the Islamic State group, wants to install an Islamic state in Nigeria, West Africa’s oil giant of 170 million people divided almost equally between a mainly Christian south and a predominantly Muslim north. The resurgence of suicide bombings in Borno raised significant concerns about the security situation in the region. Authorities imposed a curfew in the city. Gwoza is a few kilometers from Chibok, where 276 schoolgirls were abducted in 2014. Nearly 100 of the girls are still in captivity. Since then, at least 1,500 students have been kidnapped across Nigeria as armed groups find the practice a lucrative way to fund their criminal activities and take control of villages.