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A mass shooting at a tavern in Johannesburg’s Soweto township has killed 15 people and left others in critical condition, according to police. Police say they are investigating reports that a group of men arrived in a minibus taxi and opened fire on some of the patrons at the bar shortly after midnight Sunday. Those injured have been taken to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. The number of cartridges found on the scene indicates that a group of people opened fire in the bar, said Gauteng province police commissioner Lt. Gen. Elias Mawela. Read: 16 dead in India cloudburst “The primary investigation suggests that these people were enjoying themselves here, in a licensed tavern operating within the right hours,” Mawela told The Associated Press. “All of a sudden they heard some gunshots, that is when people tried to run out of the tavern. We don’t have the full details at the moment of what is the motive, and why they were targeting these people,” he said. “You can see that a high caliber firearm was used and it was shooting randomly. You can see that every one of those people were struggling to get out of the tavern,” Mawela told The Associated Press. The area where the shooting took place was very dark, making it harder to find people who could identify the suspects, he said. Rifles and a 9 mm pistol were used in the attack, said national police spokeswoman Col. Dimakatso Sello. Read: Assassination of Japan’s Shinzo Abe stuns world leaders In a separate incident, four people were shot dead by unknown gunmen at a tavern in Sweetwaters township in the coastal city of Pietermaritzburg on Saturday night. According to the police, two men entered the tavern and randomly opened fire on the patrons, killing two people on the scene while two others were confirmed dead at the hospital. Police said 8 other people are receiving treatment in a hospital. The deceased were aged between 30 and 45 and police are investigating charges of murder and attempted murder, police said. “The team will be working around the clock to track down and bring to book those responsible for this shooting”, said Kwazulu-Natal police commissioner Gen. Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. The bar shootings come two weeks after 21 teenagers were found dead in a tavern in the city of East London. The cause of those deaths has not yet been announced by authorities, but the teens were not shot nor crushed in a stampede, according to officials.

Rebels attacked a hospital in Congo and killed at least 13 people, including infants and patients, according to hospital and military officials. The Congolese army said three attackers were killed when the military intervened. Also read:Suicide bomber attacks bar in eastern Congo, killing 6 Some hospital staff are missing and several houses were burned in the attack Thursday night on the medical center in Lume, North Kivu province. It's the largest health facility in the region. Among those killed in the attack were three infants and four patients, hospital chief Kule Bwenge told reporters. “Four blocks of the medical center were set on fire. Several sick guards, as well as a nurse, are missing,” he said. The reason for targeting the hospital was unclear. In the nearby village of Kidolo, four other people were killed with machetes and shot, apparently as part of the same attack. North Kivu military spokesman Anthony Mualushayi said the attackers were Mai-Mai militia members from the Dido group. In addition to the attackers who were killed, one was captured in the ensuing clashes, he said. But local civic groups accused rebels of the Uganda-based Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, of carrying out the attack. ADF rebels have been active in eastern Congo for decades and have killed thousands in the region since they resurfaced in 2013. Other attacks were reported last week in the nearby towns of Bulongo and Kilya, also in North Kivu.   North Kivu is in eastern Congo and borders Uganda and Rwanda. Eastern Congo sees daily threats from armed groups battling for the region’s rich mineral wealth, which the world mines for electric cars, laptops and mobile phones.

Former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos died Friday in a clinic in Barcelona, Spain, after an illness, the Angolan government said. He was 79 years old and died following a long illness, the government said in an announcement on its Facebook page. The announcement said dos Santos, who ruled Angola for almost 40 years from 1979, was “a statesman of great historical scale who governed ... the Angolan nation through very difficult times.” Dos Santos had mostly lived in Barcelona since stepping down in 2017 and he reportedly had been undergoing treatment there for health problems. Angola’s current head of state, Joao Lourenco, announced five days of national mourning starting Friday, when the country’s flag will fly at half-staff and public events are canceled. Dos Santos came to power four years after Angola gained independence from Portugal and became enmeshed in the Cold War as a proxy battlefield. Read: Angolan president pledges investments to modernize public television His political journey spanned single-party Marxist rule in post-colonial years and a democratic system of government adopted in 2008. He voluntarily stepped down when his health began failing. In public, dos Santos was unassuming and even appeared shy at times. But he was a shrewd operator behind the scenes. He kept a tight grip on the 17th-century presidential palace in Luanda, the southern African country’s Atlantic capital, by distributing Angola’s wealth between his army generals and political rivals to ensure their loyalty. He demoted anyone he perceived to be gaining a level of popularity that could threaten his command. Dos Santos’ greatest foe for more than two decades was Jonas Savimbi, leader of the UNITA rebels whose post-independence guerrilla insurgency fought in the bush aimed to oust dos Santos’ Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA.

A senior U.N. official for Libya on Saturday condemned the storming of the parliament's headquarters in the east of the oil-rich country as part of protests in several cities the previous day against the political class and deteriorating economic conditions. Hundreds of protesters marched in the streets of the capital, Tripoli, and other Libyan cities on Friday, with many attacking and setting fire to government buildings, including the House of Representatives in the eastern city of Tobruk. “The people’s right to peacefully protest should be respected and protected but riots and acts of vandalism such as the storming of the House of Representatives headquarters late yesterday in Tobruk are totally unacceptable,” said Stephanie Williams, the U.N. special adviser on Libya, on Twitter. The Secretary-General is following with concern the demonstrations that were held in several cities in Libya, including Tripoli, Tobruk and Benghazi, on 1 July. Recognizing the right to demonstrate peacefully, he calls on all protestors to avoid acts of violence and on the security forces to exercise utmost restraint. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on all protesters “to avoid acts of violence and on the security forces to exercise utmost restraint,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “The secretary-general urges Libyan actors to come together to overcome the continued political deadlock, which is deepening divisions and negatively impacting the country’s economy,” Dujarric said. Friday’s protests came a day after the leaders of the parliament and another legislative chamber based in Tripoli failed to reach an agreement on elections during U.N.-mediated talks in Geneva. The dispute now centers on the eligibility requirements for candidates, according to the United Nations. Libya failed to hold elections in December, following challenges such as legal disputes, controversial presidential hopefuls and the presence of rogue militias and foreign fighters in the country. The failure to hold the December vote was a major blow to international efforts to bring peace to the Mediterranean nation. It has opened a new chapter in its long-running political impasse, with two rival governments now claiming power after tentative steps toward unity in the past year. The protesters, frustrated from years of chaos and division, have called for the removal of the current political class and elections to be held. They also rallied against dire economic conditions in the oil-rich nation, where prices have risen for fuel and bread and power outages are a regular occurrence. Protesters also rallied on Saturday in Tripoli and several towns in western Libya, blocking roads and setting tires ablaze, according to livestreaming on social media. There were fears that militias across the country could quash the protests as they did in 2020 demonstrations when they opened fire on people protesting dire economic conditions. Sabadell Jose, the European Union envoy in Libya, called on protesters to “avoid any type of violence.” He said Friday’s demonstrations demonstrated that people want “change through elections and their voices should be heard.” The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Richard Norland, urged Libyan political leaders and their foreign backers to work for a compromise to hold elections. “It is clear no single political entity enjoys legitimate control across the entire country and any effort to impose a unilateral solution will result in violence,” he warned on Twitter following a call with Mohammad Younes Menfi, head of the Libyan presidential council. Libya has been wrecked by conflict since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The country was then for years split between rival administrations in the east and west, each supported by different militias and foreign governments.

South African police are investigating the deaths of at least 20 people at a nightclub in the coastal town of East London early Sunday morning. It is unclear what led to the deaths of the young people, who were reportedly attending a party to celebrate the end of winter school exams. Read:Survivors recount Mali's deadliest attack since coup Local newspaper Daily Dispatch reported that bodies were strewn across tables and chairs without any visible signs of injuries. “At this point we cannot confirm the cause of death,” said health department spokesperson Siyanda Manana. “We are going to conduct autopsies as soon as possible to establish the probable cause of death. The deceased have been taken to state mortuaries,” Manana added. Police Minister Bheki Cele was on Sunday morning expected to visit the scene. The owner of the club, Siyakhangela Ndevu, told local broadcaster eNCA that he had been called to the scene early Sunday morning. Read: 55 people killed in latest attack in northern Burkina Faso “I am still uncertain about what really happened, but when I was called in the morning I was told the place was too full and that some people were trying to force their way into the tavern," he said. “However, we will hear what the police say about the cause of death,” Ndevu added.

Moussa Tolofidie didn’t think twice when nearly 100 jihadis on motorbikes gathered in his village in central Mali last week. A peace agreement signed last year between some armed groups and the community in the Bankass area had largely held, even if the gunmen would sometimes enter the town to preach Shariah to the villagers. But on this Sunday in June, everything changed — the jihadis began killing people. “They started with an old man about 100 years old ... then the sounds of the weapons began to intensify around me and then at one moment I heard a bullet whistling behind my ear. I felt the earth spinning, I lost consciousness and fell to the ground,” Tolofidie, a 28-year-old farmer told The Associated Press by phone Friday in Mopti town, where he was receiving medical care. “When I woke up it was dark, around midnight. There were bodies of other people on top of me. I smelled blood and smelled burnt things and heard the sounds of some people still moaning,” he said. At least 132 people were killed in several villages in the Bankass area of central Mali during two days of attacks last weekend, according to the government, which blames the Group to Support Islam and Muslims jihadi rebels linked to al-Qaida. READ: 2 UN peacekeepers killed in 6th incident in Mali in 2 weeks The attack — the deadliest since mutinous soldiers toppled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita two years ago — shows that Islamic extremist violence is spreading from Mali’s north to more central areas, analysts have said. The conflict-riddled country has been battling extremist violence for a decade since jihadis seized control of key northern cities in 2012 and tried to take over the capital. They were pushed back by a French-led military operation the following year but have since regained ground. The Associated Press spoke to several survivors on Friday who had sought treatment at a hospital in Mopti and were from the villages of Diallassagou, Dianweli and Dessagou. People described hearing gunfire and jihadis shouting, “Allahu akbar”, Arabic for “God is great,” as they ran into the forest to save their lives. Mali’s government blamed the attacks on the Group to Support Islam and Muslims, or JNIM, which is backed by al-Qaida, although the group denied responsibility in a statement on Friday. The United States and France condemned the attacks and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) issued a statement on Twitter saying the violence has caused casualties and displaced the population. Conflict analysts say the fact that the attacks happened in an area where local peace agreements were signed could signify the end of the fragile accords. “The resurgence of tension is perhaps linked to the expiration of these local agreements but also can be linked to the intensification of military operations by the defense forces,” said Baba Dakono, director of the Citizen Observatory on Governance and Security, a local civil society group. Ene Damango, a mechanic from Dialassagou, fled his village when the shooting started, but he said his uncle was shot in the leg and severely wounded. “When I returned to the village. I discovered the carnage."

Gunmen killed at least 55 people over the weekend in northern Burkina Faso, the latest attack amid mounting violence blamed on Islamic extremists, authorities said Monday. Suspected militants targeted civilians in Seytenga in the West African country's Seno province, government spokesman Wendkouni Joel Lionel Bilgo said at a news conference. READ: Hunger grips Burkina Faso due to increasing jihadi violence Nearly 5,000 people have died over the last two years in Burkina Faso because of violence blamed on Islamic extremists. Another 2 million people have fled their homes, deepening the country's humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations mission to Libya expressed concern Saturday over clashes in Tripoli, after a night of heavy fire between militias in the capital. The latest fighting comes as Libya is once again divided between competing governments — one of which is based in Tripoli — despite more than a year of tentative steps towards unification. The cause of the violence in the seaside neighborhood was unclear, but videos circulated on social media showed families with children sheltering and fleeing as artillery fire flew across the night sky. Some accused two of the city’s powerful militias of infighting. In a statement, the mission said the clashes endangered civilians and called on Libyans “to do everything possible to preserve the country’s fragile stability at this sensitive time.” Libya has for years been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each supported by various well-armed militias and foreign governments. The Mediterranean nation has been in a state of upheaval since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and later killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. READ: Detained Bangladeshis in Libya to be brought back: FM The country’s plan to transition to an elected government fell through after an interim administration based in Tripoli, headed by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, failed to hold elections last year. Dbeibah has refused to step down since then, raising questions over his mandate. In response, the country’s East-based lawmakers have elected a rival prime minister, Fathy Bashagha, a powerful former interior minister who is now operating a separate administration out of the city of Sirte. Dbeibah, in a televised phone call, urged a powerful commander who leads the 444 brigade — which serves his government — to do what is necessary to restore peace in Tripoli. His rival, Bashagha, in a series of Tweets called on armed groups to surrender their weapons. Last month, Bashagha entered Tripoli and attempted to install his government there, but left within hours after fighting broke out that killed one person. Meanwhile, a widening blockade on oil production, largely in the country's east, has cut off key state revenues in opposition to Dbeibah's remaining in power. On Friday, a video announcement by residents and workers of the Sidra oil port, a key export facility, warned that they would stop operations due to lack of basic services in surrounding towns.

Gunmen opened fire on worshippers and detonated explosives at a Catholic church in southwestern Nigeria on Sunday, leaving dozens feared dead, state lawmakers said. The attackers targeted the St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo state just as the worshippers gathered on Pentecost Sunday, legislator Ogunmolasuyi Oluwole said. Among the dead were many children, he said. The presiding priest was abducted as well, said Adelegbe Timileyin, who represents the Owo area in Nigeria’s lower legislative chamber. Also read:Children among 31 killed at church fair stampede in Nigeria “Our hearts are heavy," Ondo Governor Rotimi Akeredolu tweeted Sunday. “Our peace and tranquility have been attacked by the enemies of the people.” Authorities did not immediately release an official death toll. Timileyin said at least 50 people had been killed, though others put the figure higher. Videos appearing to be from the scene of the attack showed church worshippers lying in pools of blood while people around them wailed. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said “only fiends from the nether region could have conceived and carried out such dastardly act,” according to a statement from his spokesman. “No matter what, this country shall never give in to evil and wicked people, and darkness will never overcome light. Nigeria will eventually win,” said Buhari, who was elected after vowing to end Nigeria’s prolonged security crisis. In Rome, Pope Francis responded to news of the attack. “The pope has learned of the attack on the church in Ondo, Nigeria and the deaths of dozens of worshippers, many children, during the celebration of Pentecost. While the details are being clarified, Pope Francis prays for the victims and the country, painfully affected at a time of celebration, and entrusts them both to the Lord so that he may send his spirit to console them,” the pope said in a statement issued by the Vatican press office. Also read:Police say man shoots 2 females, self outside Iowa church It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church. While much of Nigeria has struggled with security issues, Ondo is widely known as one of Nigeria's most peaceful states. The state, though, has been caught up in a rising violent conflict between farmers and herders. Nigeria's security forces did not immediately respond to questions about how the attack occurred or if there are any leads about suspects. Owo is about 345 kilometers (215 miles) east of Lagos. “In the history of Owo, we have never experienced such an ugly incident," said lawmaker Oluwole. “This is too much.”

It now costs Ayan Hassan Abdirahman twice as much as it did just a few months ago to buy the wheat flour she uses to make breakfast each day for her 11 children in Somalia’s capital. Nearly all the wheat sold in Somalia comes from Ukraine and Russia, which have halted exports through the Black Sea since Moscow waged war on its neighbor on Feb. 24. The timing could not be worse: The U.N. has warned that an estimated 13 million people were facing severe hunger in the Horn of Africa region as a result of a persistent drought. Abdirahman has been trying to make do by substituting sorghum, another more readily available grain, in her flatbread. Inflation, though, means the price of the cooking oil she still needs to prepare it has skyrocketed too — a jar that once cost $16 is now selling for $45 in the markets of Mogadishu. “The cost of living is high nowadays, making it difficult for families even to afford flour and oil,” she says. Read: Plane wreckage found in Nepal mountains, 14 bodies recovered Haji Abdi Dhiblawe, a businessman who imports wheat flour into Somalia, fears the situation will only worsen: There is also a looming shortage of shipping containers to bring food supplies in from elsewhere at the moment. “Somalis have no place to grow wheat, and we are not even familiar with how to grow it,” he says. “Our main concern now is what will the future hold for us when we currently run out of supplies.” Another 18 million people are facing severe hunger in the Sahel, the part of Africa just below the Sahara Desert where farmers are enduring their worst agricultural production in more than a decade. The U.N. World Food Program says food shortages could worsen when the lean season arrives in late summer.