Africa

The blast tore through a mosque in Maiduguri as worshippers gathered for evening prayers, witnesses say.

An explosion has ripped through a mosque in northeastern Nigeria as worshippers gathered for their evening prayers, killing and wounding several people, according to media reports.

The blast took place at about 6pm on Wednesday (17:00 GMT) in the city of Maiduguri in Borno State, the Reuters and AFP news agencies reported, citing witnesses.

Police spokesman Nahum Daso confirmed the explosion and told AFP that an explosive ordnance team was already on site at the mosque in Maiduguri’s Gamboru market.

There was no official word on casualties.

But mosque leader Malam Abuna Yusuf told the AFP at least eight people had died, while a militia leader, Babakura Kolo, put the figure at seven.

Another witness, Musa Yusha’u, told AFP that he saw “many victims being taken away for medical treatment”.

The cause of the blast was not immediately known, but it occurred ‍in a ⁠city that has been at the heart of an armed rebellion waged by Boko Haram and ISIL’s (ISIS) offshoot in the region, the Islamic State West Africa Province, for nearly two decades.

The conflict has killed at least 40,000 people and displaced about two million from their homes since 2009, according to the United Nations.

Though the violence has waned since its peak about a decade ago, it has spilt into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

Concerns are also growing about a resurgence of violence in parts of the northeast, where armed groups remain capable of mounting deadly attacks despite years of sustained military operations.

Maiduguri itself – once the scene of nightly gun battles and bombings – has been calm in recent years, with the last major attack recorded in 2021.

A lone goal by the Manchester United forward is enough for Ivory Coast to successfully begin their AFCON title defence.

Holders Ivory Coast squandered a number of chances, but Amad Diallo’s goal early in the second half was enough to beat Mozambique 1-0 and give them a winning ⁠start to their Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title defence.

In the opening Group F ​game on Wednesday in Morocco, the Ivorians battled to break down their ‍opponents in a competitive first half but took firm control after the break without converting the many chances they created.

Diallo side-footed the ball into the net in the ‍49th minute ⁠to ensure the three-point haul in rainy conditions, but the scoreline would have been a lot more emphatic had the Ivorians been sharper in front of goal.

Wilfried Zaha, playing his first international in more than two years after his surprise recall for the Cup of Nations finals, wasted several chances, and Franck Kessie had two point-blank ​efforts saved by Mozambique goalkeeper Ernan.

Ivorian substitute Vakoun Bayo ‌also had an opportunity with an easy header in front of goal but somehow put it wide, and in the 89th minute, Bayo had an effort cleared off the line ‌with Ernan caught well out of his goal.

Mozambique brought on winger Dominguez as a second-half substitute ‌at the age of 42 years, one month ⁠and six days, making him the oldest outfield player in tournament history behind only former Egypt goalkeeper Essam El Hadary, who was 44 when he played in the 2017 final.

Mozambique are ‌still to win a match at the finals, stretching back to their tournament debut in 1986. This is their sixth appearance with a record of ‍four draws and 12 losses.

Beyond armies and violence, France built its empire through language, schooling and cultural influence. This film explores how assimilation became a method of rule and a source of resistance.

At the heart of French colonial rule was the mission “civilisatrice”, a doctrine that claimed to lift up colonised societies through education, administration and the French language. In practice, this system sought to reshape colonised people’s identities, loyalties and cultures, replacing local traditions with French norms while maintaining strict political and economic control. Schools, legal systems and bureaucracies became tools of empire as powerful as armies.

Through case studies in Algeria, Indochina and West Africa, the documentary shows how colonial administrations operated on the ground. In Algeria, settler colonialism and mass repression led to war. In Indochina, education and bureaucracy coexisted with exploitation and nationalist resistance. In West Africa, language policy and indirect rule reshaped social hierarchies and governance.

This episode examines how resistance movements challenged the promise of civilisation, forcing France to confront the contradictions at the heart of its empire. Anticolonial struggles, intellectual movements and armed uprisings not only weakened imperial rule but reshaped French politics, culture and identity itself.

The documentary also places French colonial strategies in a broader modern context. In the contemporary world, the United States projects influence less through formal empire and more through soft power. Hollywood cinema, television and digital platforms circulate American values, lifestyles and narratives globally, shaping cultural imagination in ways that echo earlier imperial projects. At the same time, US dominance in higher education, academic publishing and institutional standards helps define what knowledge is valued, taught and legitimised worldwide.

It also draws direct connections between French colonialism and the modern world. Contemporary debates over language, immigration, secularism and inequality are deeply rooted in colonial systems designed to classify, discipline and extract. Many modern state institutions, education models and economic relationships reflect structures first imposed under empire.

By tracing how cultural control, education and administration functioned as instruments of power, the documentary reveals how the legacy of French colonialism continues to shape modern capitalism, global inequality and postcolonial relations today.

Other countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, Spain and Turkiye, have already joined the case in The Hague.

Belgium has formally joined the case launched by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement on Tuesday, the ICJ – The Hague-based highest court of the United Nations – said Belgium had filed a declaration of intervention in the case.

Other countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, Spain and Turkiye, have already joined the proceedings.

South Africa brought the case in December 2023, arguing that Israel’s war in Gaza violates the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Israel has rejected the allegations and criticised the case.

While a final ruling could take years, the ICJ issued provisional measures in January 2024 ordering Israel to take steps to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and to allow unimpeded access for humanitarian aid.

The court’s orders are legally binding although it has no direct mechanism to enforce them.

The ICJ also said Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and its policies amount to annexation.

Israel has continued its assaults in Gaza and the occupied West Bank despite the rulings and growing international criticism while advancing plans to seize large parts of Palestinian territory.

Meanwhile, the United States and several of its European allies continue to provide military and financial support to Israel.

Washington has rejected the merits of South Africa’s case, and US lawmakers have criticised the country and issued threats against it.

The US has also imposed sanctions on members of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Belgium was also among a group of countries that recognised the State of Palestine in September. Nearly 80 percent of UN member states now recognise Palestine.

Since a ceasefire began on October 10, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said, Israel has killed at least 406 Palestinians and injured 1,118 in the enclave. Since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, the ministry said, at least 70,942 Palestinians have been killed and 171,195 wounded.

Two goals in 18 minutes from forward Nicolas Jackson set the tone for Senegal’s Group D win over Botswana at AFCON 2025.

Bayern Munich striker Nicolas Jackson grabbed a brace as Senegal eased to a 3-0 victory over Botswana in the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) on Tuesday.

Jackson, on loan at the Bundesliga giants from Chelsea, struck either side of half-time in Tangier, with Cherif Ndiaye completing the scoring late on.

The victory took Senegal to the top of the table in Group D on goal difference, ahead of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who beat Benin 1-0 in Rabat earlier.

It was a predictable outcome to the first match of the tournament for both teams as Senegal are 119 places above Botswana in the world rankings.

Senegal and DRC, both former champions, are expected to fill the top two places and qualify for the round of 16.

Benin and Botswana will view their clash on Saturday as a must-win affair, giving potential victors a chance to fill one of four places in the knockout stage reserved for third-placed teams.

Torrential rain greeted the teams as they walked onto the pitch at the 75,000-seat stadium, the biggest by capacity of the nine being used in Morocco for the tournament.

Senegal had a great chance to take the lead within three minutes in a one-on-one situation, but goalkeeper Goitseone Phoko blocked a shot by Jackson.

Two-time African Player of the Year Sadio Mane, Iliman Ndiaye and Jackson all came close to breaking the deadlock as the Teranga Lions dominated possession, while the Zebras defended in depth.

Botswana waste chance

While Senegal and former Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy was a mere spectator, Phoko was constantly in action, using his hands, feet and legs to keep the West Africans at bay.

But endless Senegalese pressure finally reaped a reward in 40 minutes when Germany-born Ismail Jakobs and Germany-based Jackson combined to put one of the title favourites ahead.

Jakobs cut in from the left and pulled the ball back to Jackson, who reacted instantly, using his left foot to steer the ball wide of Phoko and into the net.

Botswana, who qualified at the expense of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers Cape Verde, finally threatened to score in added time at the end of the opening half.

But they failed to take advantage of a free kick just outside the area. A weak shot was deflected for a corner that was overhit and went out of play beyond the far post without being touched.

A flowing move from midfield with quick, crisp passing set up Jackson to double the lead after 58 minutes.

When the ball was worked to him in the box, the 24-year-old rounded Mosha Gaolaolwe and tapped home.

Cherif Ndiaye put the cherry on the cake for Senegal as he finished smartly at the end of another fine team move in the 90th minute.

Confident his team were cruising to victory, Senegal coach Pape Thiaw introduced 17-year-old Ibrahim Mbaye from European champions Paris Saint-Germain midway through the second half.

The teenage striker last month became the youngest Senegalese scorer in an international when he netted in an 8-0 rout of Kenya in an AFCON warm-up match.

The Africa Cup of Nations is more than a football tournament.

Hosted this year in Morocco, it brings together a global African audience. AFCON offers a rare glimpse of how nations connect with each other and the diaspora through football.

When Qatar helped secure a peace deal to end ongoing conflict between the M23 rebel group and Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) government last month, there was hope among many Congolese that a permanent ceasefire would soon emerge to end the fighting that has uprooted close to a million people in the country’s troubled east, and give war-racked communities some respite as the new year rolls in.

Since late 2021, the group, which the United States and the United Nations say is backed by Rwanda, has clashed with the Congolese army in heavy offensives that have killed at least 7,000 people this year alone. Several regional attempts at resolution have failed. Still, when M23 representatives and Congolese government officials met for negotiations in Doha and proceeded to sign a peace deal in November, exhausted Congolese dared to hope. This deal, some reckoned, could be different.

So when the rebels launched yet another offensive and temporarily seized the strategic city Uvira this month, hopes for lasting peace were painfully crushed, as some concluded that those at the helm of the talks were playing politics.

“It’s clear that they don’t have any will to end this conflict,” Congolese lawyer and political analyst Hubert Masomera told Al Jazeera from the M23-held eastern city of Goma, blaming both sides. “Despite the number of deaths and the extent of the destruction, there is still procrastination over the implementation of the peace agreements and compliance with the ceasefire. People here feel abandoned to their sad fate.”

Fears that the conflict will not only continue, but that it could soon take on a regional dimension, are deepening, too – a sensitive prospect in a DRC where two civil wars in the past were prompted by its neighbours.

Uvira, the newly captured city the rebels then withdrew from as a “trust-building measure” following US pressure last week, is a major transport and economic hub in the huge South Kivu province. It’s strategically located on the border with Rwanda and is just 30 kilometres from the Burundian capital, Bujumbura. The city was the last eastern stronghold of the Congolese army and its allies – local “Wazalendo” militias and about 3,000 Burundian soldiers. Early this year, M23 also seized control of South Kivu’s capital city, Bukavu, as well as Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

Experts say M23’s advance on Uvira widens the group’s area of control significantly, puts it at the mouth of the mineral-rich Katanga region, and positions Rwandan proxies right at Burundi’s doorstep at a time when both governments are ramping up a war of words and accusing each other of backing rebels.

Rwanda, for its part, continues to distance itself from accusations that it backs M23.

DRC conflict’s complex history

The recent scenes in eastern DRC appear like an eerie playback of a tragic tale, conflict monitors say.

Similar peace negotiations in late 2024, led by the African Union and Angola, seemed ready to deliver peace ahead of a new year. But they collapsed after a highly anticipated meeting between the presidents of Rwanda and DRC was called off. Both sides accused each other of foiling the talks.

“There’s a sense of deja vu,” Nicodemus Minde, East Africa analyst at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), said. “It’s symbolic because we were exactly here last year … the prospects for peace are dire.”

Conflict in the DRC has long been mired in a complex mix of ethnic grievances, poor governance and interference from its much smaller neighbours. It goes back to the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda, which displaced millions into neighbouring eastern DRC, making them a minority there. Rwanda has since viewed the DRC as a hiding place for Hutu genocidaires, however, and its hot pursuit of them toppled a government in Kinshasa and led to the first and second Congo wars (1996-2003). The UN also accused the Rwandan and allied Ugandan forces of looting the DRC’s vast mineral wealth, including gold, coltan and tin, during the conflict.

Scores of militias emerged as governments armed and counter-armed civilians in the wars, many of which are still active in the DRC. The M23 itself is only the latest iteration of a Tutsi militia that fought in the Congo wars, and whose fighters integrated into the DRC army. In 2012, these fighters revolted, complaining of poor treatment by the Congolese forces. Now, the M23 claims to be fighting the marginalisation of ethnic Tutsis, some of whom say they are systematically denied citizenship, among other complaints. The M23 and its allied Congo River Alliance (AFC) have not stated goals of taking Kinshasa, even though members of the group have at times threatened to advance on the capital. Officially, the rebels claim to be “liberating” eastern DRC communities.

In 2012, M23 initially emerged with enough force to take the strategic city of Goma, but was forced back within a year by Congolese forces and a special UN intervention force of troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi. When the M23 resurfaced in late 2021, though, it was with much more ferocity, boosted by about 4,000 Rwandan troops in addition to its own 6,000 fighters, according to the UN. Lightning and intensely bloody offensives have since seen it control vast swaths of territory, including the major cities of Goma, Bukavu – and now, Uvira.

On the map, M23 appears to be eking out a slice of Congolese territory wedged between the DRC and neighbouring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. If it gains control of the two Kivus in their entirety, it would lord over a resource-rich area five times Rwanda’s size with easy access to Kigali and Kampala.

“They are trying to create some sort of buffer zone which the neighbouring countries, particularly Rwanda but also Uganda, have an interest in controlling,” analyst Paul-Simon Handy, also of the ISS, told Al Jazeera.

Kigali officially denies backing M23, but justifies its actions based on accusations that the DRC supports a Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The FDLR did exist for many years in the DRC, but it simply no longer poses a significant threat to Kigali, analyst Minde said.

Rwanda’s tensions with Burundi have similar historic correlations, as Hutus who perpetrated the 1994 genocide similarly fled there, and Kigali alleges the government continues to back rebels. In 2015, Burundi accused Rwanda of sponsoring an abortive coup in Bujumbura. Kigali denies this.

Does the US deal have a chance?

Several African countries have attempted to help solve the crisis, militarily and diplomatically, but all have failed. The regional bloc, the East African Community, of which the DRC is a part, deployed about 6,500 Kenyan-led peacekeepers to stabilise eastern DRC, as Kenyan diplomats developed a Nairobi Peace Process in 2022 that was meant to see several rebel groups agree to a truce. The agreement collapsed only a year later, however, after Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi grew frustrated over the force’s refusal to launch offensives against M23.

Then, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which the massive DRC is also a part, deployed troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi in May 2023. There was hope that the trio, which proved crucial in driving back the first M23 insurrection, would again record success. They appeared no match for the new M23, though, and withdrew this June.

Meanwhile, the Angola-led Luanda Peace Process collapsed after President Joao Lourenco stepped back in March, citing frustration with both sides amid constant finger-pointing.

Qatar and the US stepped in to broker peace in June this year, using a unique two-pronged approach. The Doha peace talks, on the one hand, have focused on negotiations between the DRC and M23, while the Washington talks focus on the DRC and the Rwanda governments. Some experts warned that Washington’s motivation – aside from President Donald Trump’s fixation on being a global peacemaker figure – was a clause in the deal that guarantees US extraction of rare earth minerals from both countries. The agreement was unlikely to hold on that basis, rights groups said.

After a few no-shows and wobbles, the M23 finally agreed to the Doha framework on November 15. The agreement includes eight implementation protocols, including one on ceasefire monitoring and another on prisoner exchange. On December 4, President Trump sat next to a smiling Paul Kagame and Tshisekedi as all three signed the US-peace deal in Washington, which mandated both Rwanda and DRC to stop supporting armed groups. There were pockets of fighting as the signatures were penned, but all was supposed to be largely peaceful from then on.

What happened in Uvira barely a week after was the opposite. The Congolese government said at least 400 people were killed and 200,000 others displaced as M23 fighters pressed on the city. Thousands more were displaced into Burundi, which already homes some 200,000 Congolese refugees. Fleeing Uvira residents shared accounts of bombed villages, summary killings and widespread sexual violence by both sides, according to medical group Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Is there hope for peace?

Even though M23 began withdrawing from Uvira on Thursday, analysts are still scrambling to understand what the group was hoping to achieve by taking the city, shattering the peace agreements and angering Washington.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio directly scolded Rwanda after Uvira’s capture, saying Kigali had violated the deal. Last week, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau met with DRC Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner in Washington and promised that the US “is prepared to take action to enforce adherence” from Rwanda.

What that action looks like is unclear, but what’s certain, Minde said, was that the agreement seemed to favour Kigali more than Kinshasa.

“If you look at the agreement, the consequences [of either party breaching] were not forthright, and this points to the weakness of the deal,” he said, adding that there is much more at stake for DRC if there is a breach, including escalating conflict and mass displacement within the country. But that was not taken into account, the analyst explained.

Uvira’s fall, albeit on hold, is not only a blow to Trump’s peacemaker reputation but also sharpens tensions between Burundi and Rwanda, with analysts saying it could lead to direct clashes.

Bujumbura accuses Kigali of supporting the antigovernment Red Tabara rebels – a charge Rwanda and the rebels deny – and tensions between the two governments have led to border closures since last year. Last week, M23 announced that it captured hundreds of Burundian soldiers during the Uvira offensive.

Fears of a regional spillover also prompted the UN Security Council to extend the mandate of the MONUSCO peacekeeping mission for a year, ahead of its December 20 expiration. The 11,000 troop force has been in place since 1999, but has a complicated relationship with the DRC government, which says it has not done enough to protect civilians. MONUSCO forces initially began withdrawing in 2024, but then paused that move in July amid the escalating M23 offensive. Ituri, the force’s headquarters, is held by M23, meaning the troops are unable to do much.

Amid the chaos, the finger pointing, and the political games, it’s the Congolese people who are feeling the most despair at the turn of events so close to the new year, analysts say. After more than three decades of war that has turned the green, undulating hills of eastern DRC into a perpetual battlefield, Masameko in Goma said it’s locals, more than anyone else, with the most at stake.

“People have suffered enough and need to breathe, to sleep with the certainty that they will wake up tomorrow,” he said. “[They need] to live in their homes without fear of a bomb falling on them. That is all the people in this part of the republic need.”

JOHANNESBURG — The U.S. government has signed health deals with at least nine African countries, part of its new approach to global health funding, with agreements that reflect the Trump administration’s interests and priorities and are geared toward providing less aid and more mutual benefits.

The agreements signed so far, with Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda among others, are the first under the new global health framework, which makes aid dependent on negotiations between the recipient country and the U.S.

Some of the countries that have signed deals either have been hit by U.S. aid cuts or have separate agreements with the Trump administration to accept and host third-country deportees, although officials have denied any linkage.

The Trump administration says the new “America First” global health funding agreements are meant to increase self-sufficiency and eliminate what it says are ideology and waste from international assistance. The deals replace a patchwork of previous health agreements under the now-dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development.

U.S. aid cuts have crippled health systems across the developing world, including in Africa, where many countries relied on the funding for crucial programs, including those responding to outbreaks of disease.

The new approach to global health aligns with President Trump’s pattern of dealing with other nations transactionally, using direct talks with foreign governments to promote his agenda abroad. It builds on his sharp turn from traditional U.S. foreign assistance, which supporters say furthered American interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances.

A different strategy

The deals mark a sharp departure from how the U.S. has provided healthcare funding over the years and mirrors the Trump administration’s interests.

South Africa, which has lost most of its U.S. funding — including $400 million in annual support — due in part to its disputes with the U.S., has not signed a health deal, despite having one of the world’s highest HIV prevalence rates.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, reached a deal but with an emphasis on Christian-based health facilities, although it has a slight majority Muslim population. Rwanda and Uganda, which each have deportation deals with the U.S., have announced health pacts.

Cameroon, Eswatini, Lesotho, Liberia and Mozambique also are among those that have signed health deals with the U.S.

According to the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank, the deals “combine U.S. funding reductions, ambitious co-financing expectations, and a shift toward direct government-to-government assistance.”

The deals represent a reduction in total U.S. health spending for each country, the center said, with annual U.S. financial support down 49% compared with 2024.

A faith-based deal in Nigeria, a lifeline for several others

Under its deal, Nigeria, a major beneficiary of USAID funds, would get support that has a “strong emphasis” on Christian faith-based healthcare providers.

The U.S. provided approximately $2.3 billion in health assistance to Nigeria between 2021 and 2025, mostly through USAID, official data shows. The new five-year agreement will see U.S. support at over $2 billion, while Nigeria is expected to raise $2.9 billion to boost its healthcare programs.

The agreement “was negotiated in connection with reforms the Nigerian government has made to prioritize protecting Christian populations from violence and includes significant dedicated funding to support Christian healthcare facilities,” the State Department said in a statement.

The department said “the president and secretary of State retain the right to pause or terminate any programs which do not align with the national interest,” urging Nigeria to ensure “that it combats extremist religious violence against vulnerable Christian populations.”

For several other countries, the new deals could be a lifeline after U.S. aid cuts crippled their healthcare systems and left them racing to fill the gaps.

Under its deal, Mozambique will get U.S. support of over $1.8 billion for HIV and malaria programs. Lesotho, one of the poorest countries in the world, clinched a deal worth over $232 million.

In the tiny kingdom of Eswatini, the U.S. committed to provide up to $205 million to support public health data systems, disease surveillance and outbreak response, while the country agreed to increase domestic health expenditures by $37 million.

No deal for South Africa after disputes

South Africa is noticeably absent from the list of signatories following tensions with the Trump administration.

Trump has said he will cut all financial assistance to South Africa over his widely rejected claims that it is violently persecuting its Afrikaner white minority.

The dismantling of USAID resulted in the loss of over $436 million in yearly financing for HIV treatment and prevention in South Africa, putting the program and thousands of jobs in the healthcare industry at risk.

Health compacts with countries that signed deportation deals

At least four of the countries that have reached deals previously agreed to receive third-country deportees from the U.S., a controversial immigration policy that has been a trademark of the Trump administration.

The State Department has denied any linkage between the healthcare compacts and agreements regarding accepting third-country asylum seekers or third-country deportees from the United States. However, officials have said that political considerations unrelated to health issues may be part of the negotiations.

Rwanda, one of the countries with a deportation deal with the U.S., signed a $228-million health pact requiring the U.S. to support it with $158 million.

Uganda, another such country, signed a health deal worth nearly $2.3 billion in which the U.S. will provide up to $1.7 billion. Eswatini also has started receiving flights with deported prisoners from the United States.

Magome and Gumede write for the Associated Press. AP writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya; Dyepkazah Shibayan in Abuja, Nigeria; Mark Banchereau in Dakar, Senegal; and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Lyle Foster’s match-winning 79th-minute strike allowed South Africa to win first opening match at AFCON since 2004.

Lyle Foster scored a superb winner from outside the box as South Africa defeated Angola 2-1 in Africa Cup of Nations Group B in Marrakesh on Monday, the first time they have won their opening match ⁠at the continental finals in 21 years.

South Africa also had a goal disallowed and struck the crossbar, ​just about deserving the nervy victory. Angola also had chances and will ‍be disappointed not to have gotten something from the game.

South Africa took the lead on 21 minutes when Oswin Appollis showed neat footwork in the box to work a shooting chance and put the ball in the bottom ‍corner. But Angola ⁠equalised before the break as Show got a touch to Fredy’s free kick to steer the ball into the net.

The winning moment came after 79 minutes, when Foster was teed up 20 yards out and curled his shot into the top corner to give the bronze medallists from two years ago a positive start to their campaign.

It was a workmanlike performance from South Africa, who do not have the plethora of players in top ​European leagues that their tournament rivals enjoy, with Foster their only one ‌at Premier League Burnley.

But they are a well-oiled machine under Belgian coach Hugo Broos and did enough for a victory that set them well on course for the knockout rounds. Egypt and Zimbabwe will meet later on Monday in ‌the same pool.

Even first half

South Africa took the lead after a period of sustained possession that led to Khuliso Mudau’s cross, which was ‌touched by both Sipho Mbule and Foster before Appollis beat two ⁠defenders and side-footed into the bottom corner of the net.

Angola equalised on 35 minutes when Fredy’s low free kick was touched into the bottom corner by Show, his second goal in his 50th cap for his country, to make it ‌1-1 at the break.

South Africa thought they had retaken the lead when halftime substitute Tshepang Moremi turned his defender and fired low into the bottom corner of the net, but a VAR review showed ‍that Foster was offside in the buildup.

South Africa’s Mbekezeli Mbokazi crashed the ball against the crossbar with a rasping shot from 35 yards, before Foster’s clinical strike secured all three points.

Zambia rally to draw with Mali

In an earlier Group A match on Monday, Zambia’s Patson Daka scored with a spectacular diving header in stoppage time to see his ‍side come from behind ‍and force a 1-1 draw with Mali in Casablanca.

Mali looked in control for most of the encounter, but paid the price for sitting back in the closing stages as Zambia staged a ⁠late recovery, with Daka leaping through the air to force home Mathews Banda’s curling cross two minutes into ​stoppage time at the end of the game.

Lassine Sinayoko had ‌taken advantage of sloppy defending to give ‌Mali a 62nd-minute lead ⁠after his strike partner, El Bilal Toure, had a first-half penalty saved.

Footage shows security forces dispersing crowds with tear gas at rallies for Ugandan presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, in Kampala. The pop star-turned-politician is campaigning ahead of Uganda’s January 2026 elections, as officials warn against interference.

Who: Nigeria vs Tanzania
What: CAF Africa Cup of Nations
Where: Fez Stadium in Fez, Morocco
When: Tuesday, December 23, at 6:30pm (17:30 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 14:30 GMT in advance of our text commentary stream.

Nigeria’s much-celebrated golden generation was expected to propel the nation to new heights, but another World Cup qualification disappointment has left the Super Eagles searching for answers.

After the heartbreak of missing out on a trip to North America in 2026, Nigeria arrive in Morocco in search of redemption and continental glory. The three-time champions open their AFCON 2025 campaign against Group C opponents Tanzania, who have appeared at the tournament just three times.

Boasting world-class talent in Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman, Nigeria are among the favourites to top the group that also features Tunisia and Uganda.

Tuesday’s face-off in Fez pits together Nigeria and Tanzania for only the second time at the continental championships, 45 years after their first meeting at the competition.

Here’s all you need to know about the match:

Why did Nigeria fail to qualify for the 2026 World Cup?

Nigeria were among the best runners-up across the nine African qualifying groups who advanced to the playoffs, but lost 4-3 on penalties to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), failing to reach the inter-confederation playoffs.

The Super Eagles, who have made six World Cup appearances, have now failed to qualify for the global showpiece event for the second time in a row.

A poor start to their qualifying campaign, managerial changes and a pay dispute were among the factors that led to their World Cup disappointment.

What happened after the loss to DCR?

Last week, Nigeria submitted a petition to FIFA alleging DRC fielded ineligible players in that decisive playoff match.

The Nigerian football federation said several dual-nationality players had been cleared to play for DRC without meeting the required criteria, but DRC’s federation rejected the allegations.

Coaching turnover for Tanzania

There is no dearth of controversy in Tanzania, too.

Tanzania’s football federation fired its coach, Hemed Suleiman, just a month before AFCON 2025, replacing him with Miguel Gamondi, who will take interim charge of the Taifa Stars for the competition.

Former coach Suleiman led Tanzania to their fourth Cup of Nations appearance and reached the quarterfinals of the African Nations Championships this year. But they failed to secure a spot in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Who are Nigeria’s key players to watch?

Nigeria’s squad is packed with talent in all departments, with forwards and former CAF Player of the Year award winners Osimhen and Lookman headlining the group.

Defender Calvin Bassey, midfielders Alex Iwobi and Wilfred Ndidi, along with striker Samuel Chukwueze, are the other high-profile players.

Who are Tanzania’s key players?

Mbwana Samatta, who plays for Ligue 1 club Le Havre, and fellow experienced forward Simon Msuva headline Tanzania’s squad.

Msuva returns after missing the October and November windows and remains the most capped member of the squad. An appearance on Tuesday will mark his 100th international cap.

Defender Mohamed Hussein is a formidable presence in Tanzania’s backline, while youngster Haji Mnoga, who plays for Salford City in the English fourth tier, is also part of the squad.

Form guide

All matches, most recent result last:

Nigeria: L-L-W-W-W

Tanzania: L-L-L-L-D

Head-to-head

Nigeria and Tanzania have met seven times across all competitions, including at the FIFA World Cup.

Nigeria have won four of those matches, while three ended in a draw.

Their last meeting was in 2016 at AFCON, where Nigeria won 1-0.

AFCON records

Nigeria have played at AFCON 20 times, finishing winners on three occasions – most recently lifting the trophy in 2013 – and runners-up five times. Remarkably, they have finished in the top three in 13 of their last 15 AFCON appearances.

Tanzania have never made it past the group stage in their three AFCON appearances. They are also one of only four teams at this year’s edition that have never won an AFCON match, with six defeats and three draws in their nine AFCON matches overall.

The AFCON 2025 is a landmark tournament for Tanzania, as they have qualified for successive finals for the first time.

Nigeria team news

Nigeria will be without centre-back Benjamin Fredrick and full-back Ola Aina, who are both injured.

William Troost-Ekong, the regular captain, is unavailable after recently announcing his retirement from international football, with Ndidi now taking over the captaincy.

Strikers Victor Boniface and Tolu Arokodare were the surprise omissions from the squad.

Nigeria’s predicted lineup

Nwabili (Goalkeeper); Osayi-Samuel, Ajayi, Bassey, Sanusi; Chukwueze, Ndidi, Iwobi, Lookman; Osimhen, Adams

Tanzania team news

New coach Gamondi dropped experienced midfielder Mudathir Yahya from the squad, but apart from that, there are no absentees.

Tanzania’s predicted lineup

Suleiman (Goalkeeper); Kapombe, Hamad, Husseini, Msindo; Miroshi, Salum, Job; Msuva, Mzize, Samatta

The country has seen a wave of recent mass abductions, as it suffers from multiple interlinked security concerns.

Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school in November, according to a presidential spokesman, after 100 were freed earlier this month.

“Another 130 Abducted Niger State Pupils Released, None Left In Captivity,” Sunday Dare said in a post on X on Sunday.

In late November, hundreds of students and staff were kidnapped from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger State.

The attack came amid a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in the town of Chibok.

The West African country suffers from multiple interlinked security concerns, from armed groups in the northeast to armed “bandit” gangs in the northwest.

The exact number of children taken from St Mary’s has been unclear throughout the ordeal.

Initially, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said that 315 students and staff were unaccounted for after the attack in the rural hamlet of Papiri.

About 50 of them escaped immediately afterwards, and on December 7, the government secured the release of about 100 people.

That would leave about 165 thought to be still in captivity before Sunday’s announcement that 130 were rescued.

However, a UN source told the AFP news agency that all those taken appeared to have been released, as dozens thought to have been kidnapped had managed to run off during the attack and make their way home.

The accounting has been complicated because the children’s homes are scattered across swaths of rural Nigeria, sometimes requiring three or four hours of travel by motorbike to reach their remote villages, the source said.

The source told the AFP that “the remaining set of girls/secondary school students will be taken to Minna”, the capital of Niger State, on Monday.

“We’ll have to still do final verification,” Daniel Atori, a spokesman for CAN in Niger State, told the AFP.

Mass kidnappings

It has not been made public who seized the children from their boarding school, or how the government secured their release.

Kidnappings for ransom are a common way for criminals and armed groups to make quick cash in Nigeria.

But a spate of mass abductions in November put an uncomfortable spotlight on the country’s already grim security situation.

Assailants kidnapped two dozen Muslim schoolgirls, 38 church worshippers, and a bride and her bridesmaids, with farmers, women and children also taken hostage.

The kidnappings also come as Nigeria faces a diplomatic offensive from the United States, where President Donald Trump has alleged that there have been mass killings of Christians in Nigeria that amounted to a “genocide”, and he threatened military intervention.

Nigeria’s government and independent analysts reject that framing, which has long been used by the Christian right in the US and Europe.

One of the first mass kidnappings that drew international attention was in 2014, when nearly 300 girls were seized from their boarding school in the northeastern town of Chibok by the Boko Haram armed group.

A decade later, Nigeria’s kidnap-for-ransom crisis has “consolidated into a structured, profit-seeking industry” that raised some $1.66m between July 2024 and June 2025, according to a recent report by SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based consultancy.

Leaders from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso are hoping to find a way to repel advancing fighters linked to al-Qaeda. Al Jazeera’s Laura Khan explains what’s at stake at an Alliance of Sahel States summit in Bamako.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has condemned Rwanda for backing a rebel offensive in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and urged it to withdraw its forces and stop supporting the M23 armed group.

The UNSC unanimously adopted the resolution on Friday, and also extended the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, known as MONUSCO, for a year. This came despite Rwanda’s repeated denials – contrary to overwhelming evidence – of involvement in a conflict that has intensified as a United States-brokered peace deal unravels.

The UNSC said M23’s seizure of the strategic city of Uvira “risks destabilizing the whole region, gravely endangers civilian populations and imperils ongoing peace efforts”.

“M23 must immediately withdraw at least 75km (47 miles) from Uvira and return to compliance with all of its obligations undertaken in the Framework Agreement,” said Jennifer Locetta, a US representative to the UN.

M23 captured Uvira in the South Kivu Province on December 10, less than a week after the DRC and Rwandan presidents met US President Donald Trump in Washington and committed to a peace agreement.

“It is an amazing day: great day for Africa, great day for the world and for these two countries. And they have so much to be proud of,” Trump crowed, as fighting quickly undermined the White House spectacle.

One Uvira resident, Feza Mariam, told Al Jazeera in recent days: “We don’t know anything about the political process they are talking about.

“The only thing we need is peace. Anyone able to provide us with peace is welcome here. For the rest, we as citizens, we don’t care about it.”

The M23 group claimed on Wednesday it was withdrawing from the city following international backlash, but the DRC government dismissed this as a “staged” pullback, saying M23 forces remain deployed there.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged on Friday that commitments under the Washington accord were “not being met” but said his government had now signed agreements it could “hold people to”.

The US earlier warned it would use available tools against those undermining the peace deal, with US officials estimating between 5,000 and 7,000 Rwandan soldiers were operating in eastern DRC as of early December.

The US had previously sanctioned Rwandan cabinet ministers earlier this year, and the DRC later led calls to expand those sanctions after the seizure of Uvira.

The fighting has triggered a major humanitarian emergency, with more than 84,000 people fleeing into Burundi since early December, according to the UN refugee agency, which said the country has reached a “critical point” as refugees arrive exhausted and traumatised. They join approximately 200,000 others who had already sought refuge in the country.

Regional officials say more than 400 civilians have been killed in recent violence in the city.

The seizure of Uvira, located directly across Lake Tanganyika from Burundi’s largest city, Bujumbura, has raised fears of broader regional spillover. The city was the last major foothold in South Kivu for the DRC government and the Wazalendo, which are DRC-allied militias, after M23 captured the provincial capital, Bukavu, in February.

Rwanda has consistently denied backing M23, despite assessments by UN experts and the international community. In a February interview with CNN, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said he did not know whether his country’s troops were in the DRC, despite being commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Rwanda implicitly acknowledged a presence in eastern DRC in February 2024, when it rejected a US call to withdraw troops and surface-to-air missile systems, saying it had adjusted its posture for self-defence.

Rwanda maintains that its security concerns are driven by the presence of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a militia composed largely of Hutus who fled to the DRC after participating in the 1994 genocide that killed approximately 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Kigali views the group as an existential threat and accuses the DRC government of supporting it.

The broader conflict in the mineral-rich eastern DRC, where more than 100 armed groups operate, has displaced more than seven million people, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

On the eve of the 2025 AFCON, football’s governing body in Africa create new four-year cycle and form a Nations League.

African football is getting a major shake-up with the creation of the African Nations League and conversion of the biennial Africa Cup of Nations to a four-year cycle.

Patrice Motsepe, the president of the Confederation of African Football, announced the changes Saturday during his news conference before the 2025 Africa Cup hosted by Morocco.

Motsepe said that the 2027 Africa Cup, to be hosted by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, will go ahead as planned and that the following edition – originally scheduled for 2029 – will be moved forward to take place in 2028. The next Africa Cup after that will be in 2032.

This would allow the first African Nations League to take place in 2029. Motsepe said it would involve each of the continent’s 54 members, divided into four geographical zones, with games in September and October before the finals are held in November.

“What is new is that … in Africa there’s going to be a competition every year where the best African players who play in Europe and worldwide will be with us on the continent,” Motsepe said.

CAF officials did not immediately specify if the African Nations League will be held on a biennial or annual basis.

Meanwhile, Caf has increased the prize money for the winners of Afcon from $7m (£5.2m) to $10m (£7.5m).

The surprise announcement about the future of Afcon was made by Motsepe after a meeting of Caf’s executive committee in Morocco before the start of the 2025 finals in Rabat on Sunday.

The biennial hosting of Afcon has long caused issues with the football calendar, with the vast majority of recent tournaments held midway through the European club season.

However, Caf remained committed to scheduling the tournament every two years – not least as it needs the revenue raised from the finals to reinvest in the game on the continent.

Caf had made a resolution for Afcon to be held in a June-July slot from 2019 onwards and began its new plan in Egypt that year.

But the Covid-19 pandemic and weather conditions in host nations in Central and West Africa meant the 2021 and 2023 editions in Cameroon and Ivory Coast respectively were staged in January and February instead.

Fifa’s expanded 32-team Club World Cup was held in June and July this year, forcing Caf to opt for mid-season dates once again.

As a result this year’s Afcon in Morocco will take place over Christmas and the New Year for the first time, with the final on 18 January.

The dates for the finals in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in 2027 are yet to be announced, and that will be swiftly followed by another Afcon in 2028 – with the hosts of that edition yet to be decided.

After that, the continent’s biggest tournament will become a quadrennial tournament taking place in the same year as the European Championships.

Motsepe said the decision had been made in conjunction with Fifa president Gianni Infantino and the world governing body’s general secretary Mattias Grafstrom – and that Caf “have to compromise”.

A shell company with Israeli ties exploited Palestinians desperate to flee the ongoing war in Gaza, charging them large sums of money to covertly exit the country in what may be an official plan to ethnically cleanse the territory.

In an exclusive digital investigation, Al Jazeera probed last month’s mystery flight that spirited 153 passengers from Gaza to South Africa, unearthing figures working for Al-Majd Europe, an unregistered front organisation that falsely claimed to be working for humanitarian aims.

The Palestinians arrived at OR Tambo International Airport, which serves the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, on November 13. Refused entry by border police as they did not have departure stamps from Israel on their passports, they were stuck on the aircraft for 12 hours before being allowed to disembark.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted the passengers “out of compassion”, but said at the time that his government, which has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, would investigate as it seemed that they had been “flushed out” of the Gaza Strip.

Forced evacuations

Israeli officials have previously openly stated that they support what they have termed the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, in what effectively would be their forced evacuation.

In March 2025, Israel’s security cabinet set up a controversial bureau to get Palestinians to leave Gaza voluntarily, which was headed by former deputy director of the Ministry of Defence, Yaakov Blitstein. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said at the time that 40 percent of Gaza residents were “interested in emigrating”.

The previous month, Al-Majd Europe set up its online presence with a new website stating that it focused on relief efforts in Muslim countries, specifically “for Gazans wishing to exit Gaza”, with claims that it had organised mobile health clinics in the enclave and trips for Palestinian doctors abroad that Al Jazeera later discovered to be false.

A passenger from the November flight to South Africa, whose identity was kept hidden for his own protection, said he contacted the organisation after finding the link online, which promised not only a way out of Gaza, but safety and medical treatment for injuries. “Initially, it said it was free. Then they asked for $1,400 [per person]. Then the price went up to $2,500,” he said.

Testimonies gathered by Al Jazeera showed that payments requested varied from $1,000-2,000 per person, with strict criteria for signing up. Only families would be accepted on condition that they kept their departure secret, with details on flight departures only released a few hours before takeoff.

Passengers say they were told to arrive at the Karem Abu Salem crossing (called Kerem Shalom in Israel) in southern Gaza. When they arrived, their personal belongings were confiscated, and they were put on buses to Ramon Airport, near the Israeli city of Eilat, apparently by Israeli authorities.

Nigel Branken, a South African social worker who helped tho Palestinians on the plane, previously told Al Jazeera that there were “very clearly … marks of Israel involved in this operation to take people … to displace them”.

Evacuees told Al Jazeera they were not informed of their final destination until moments before boarding. They were then escorted onto a flight registered to a brand new airline called FLYYO without exit stamps in their travel documents.

Al Jazeera discovered that FLYYO has organised a number of similar flights, all taking off from Israeli airports, headed to Romania, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya and other destinations.

False identity

Further scrutiny of Al-Majd Europe, which said it was a “humanitarian foundation established in 2010 in Germany”, with a head office located in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, later revealed its identity to be a sham.

Al Jazeera found no company registered by that name on any German or European database. The supposed address does not appear in official Jerusalem records, with the location on Google Maps corresponding to a hospital and a cafe.

While digging into the flights, Al Jazeera found two faces linked to the organisation – both Palestinians. The first was Muayad Hisham Saidam, which the organisation lists as its humanitarian projects manager in Gaza.

A search of Saidam’s name reveals that in May 2024, his wife created a public page to ask for donations to help her family leave Gaza. A year later, Saidam posted an image of himself boarding a plane chartered by Fly Lili, another Romanian airline, announcing that he was departing Gaza.

Using the angle of his shadow, time of the flight and the location of the plane on the Ramon Airport runway, Al Jazeera discovered Saidam was likely on a flight on May 27, 2025, which left Israel for Budapest, with 57 Palestinian passengers from Gaza.

It appears that Saidam’s identity is real, and that his family was likely evacuated to Indonesia. But his connection to Al-Majd Europe is unclear.

The second public face of the organisation belongs to a man named only as Adnan, though he appears to have no digital footprint.

On November 13, the day of the Johannesburg flight, a page containing a number of partner companies was deleted from Al-Majd’s website. Using open-source intelligence techniques, Al Jazeera recovered the page, which showed a number of well-known groups that Al-Majd claimed to have been working with, including the International Red Cross.

One name stood out: Talent Globus – a recruitment company established in Estonia in 2024, with a fund containing only $350. Its website lists four employees, including Director Tom Lind, a businessman with Israeli and Estonian citizenship.

Lind’s name has been linked to a number of other companies where he’s listed either as a founder or director – all without official registration or physical addresses.

Lind’s name appeared in reports by Israeli newspaper Haaretz as one of the coordinators of the flights of Palestinians leaving Ramon Airport.

In May 2025, Lind posted on his LinkedIn page that he had left Talent Globus, and was instead focused on “humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians”. He said that, alongside a network of individuals and groups, he had assisted with the evacuation of a “substantial number” of people from Gaza.

Photos of the other three employees of Talent Globus from its website – James Thompson, Maria Rodriguez, David Chen – all turned out to be stock images.

And much like those employees, it appears as though Al-Majd itself is a fake humanitarian group, leading to the question of what those behind the organisation are trying to hide.

Publicly, Israel has seemed to back down from its plan to encourage “voluntary emigration”. But Al Jazeera’s investigation poses more questions – is Al-Majd part of a bigger plan, a way to quietly empty Gaza of its inhabitants, one secret flight at a time?

UN refugee agency says women and children arriving ‘exhausted and severely traumatised’ after fleeing eastern DRC.

More than 84,000 people have fled to Burundi from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) amid a Rwanda-backed rebel offensive near the countries’ shared border, according to the latest United Nations figures.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday that Burundi had reached a “critical point” amid the influx of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing a surge in violence in the DRC’s South Kivu province.

“Thousands of people crossing the border on foot and by boats each day have overwhelmed local resources, creating a major humanitarian emergency that requires immediate global support,” UNHCR said, noting that more than 200,000 people had now sought refuge in Burundi.

“Women and children are particularly affected, arriving exhausted and severely traumatised, bearing the physical and psychological marks of terrifying violence. Our teams met pregnant women, who shared that they had not eaten in days.”

The exodus began in early December when the M23 rebel group launched an assault that culminated in the capture of Uvira, a strategic city in the eastern DRC that is home to hundreds of thousands of people.

Refugees started crossing into Burundi on December 5, with numbers surging after M23 seized control of Uvira on December 10. On Wednesday, M23 said it was withdrawing after international condemnation of its attack on the city.

In Burundi, displaced families face difficult conditions at transit points and makeshift camps with minimal infrastructure, the UN said.

Many have sheltered under trees without adequate protection from the elements, and a lack of clean water and proper sanitation.

About half of those displaced are children less than the age of 18, along with numerous women, including some who are pregnant.

Ezechiel Nibigira, the Burundian president of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), reported 25,000 refugees in Gatumba in western Burundi, and nearly 40,000 in Buganda in the northwest, most of them “completely destitute”.

Augustin Minani, the administrator in Rumonge, told the AFP news agency that the situation was “catastrophic” and said “the vast majority are dying of hunger.”

Refugees recounted witnessing bombings and artillery fire, with some seeing relatives killed and others forced to abandon elderly family members who could not continue the journey.

M23 withdrawal

M23 announced earlier this week it would begin withdrawing from Uvira, with the group’s leadership calling the move a “trust-building measure” to support United States- and Qatari-led peace efforts.

However, the Congolese Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya dismissed the announcement as a “diversion”, alleging it was meant to relieve pressure on Rwanda.

Local sources reported that M23 police and intelligence personnel remained deployed in the city on Thursday.

The offensive extended M23’s territorial gains this year after the group captured the major cities of Goma in January and Bukavu in February.

The rebel advance has given M23 control over substantial territory in the mineral-rich eastern DRC and severed a critical supply route for Congolese forces along the border with Burundi.

M23 launched the Uvira offensive less than a week after the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda met with US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, to reaffirm their commitment to a peace agreement.

The rebels’ takeover of the city drew sharp criticism from Washington, with officials warning of consequences for what they described as Rwanda’s violation of the accord. Rwanda denies backing M23.

The fighting has killed more than 400 civilians in the DRC and displaced more than 200,000 since early December, according to regional officials and humanitarian organisations.

The broader conflict across the eastern part of the country, where more than 100 armed groups operate, has displaced more than seven million people, the UN refugee agency says.

For the past 25 years, Somalia’s political transitions have not succeeded by accident. They were sustained through international engagement, pressure, and mediation aimed at preserving fragile political settlements. Today, however, Somalia stands at a dangerous crossroads. The federal government’s unilateral pursuit of power, cloaked in the language of democratic reform, threatens to trigger a legitimacy crisis and undo decades of political gains and international investment.

Universal suffrage is an ideal that all Somalis share. However, deep political disagreement among groups, persistent security challenges, the looming expiry of the government’s mandate, and financial constraints make the timely implementation of universal suffrage nearly impossible.

Pursuing universal suffrage without political consent, institutional readiness, or minimum security guarantees does not deepen democracy or sovereignty; it concentrates power in the hands of incumbents while increasing the risk of fragmentation and parallel authority.

Instead of addressing these constraints through consensus, the government is engaged in a power grab, deploying the rhetoric of universal suffrage. It has unilaterally changed the constitution, which forms the basis of the political settlement. It has also enacted self-serving laws governing electoral processes, political parties, and the Election and Boundaries Commission. Moreover, the government has appointed 18 commissioners, all backed by the ruling Justice and Solidarity Party (JSP).

Meanwhile, Somaliland announced its secession in 1991 and has been seeking recognition for the last three and a half decades. Most of Somalia’s national opposition, along with the leaders of Puntland and Jubbaland Federal Member States, have rejected the government’s approach and formed the Council for the Future of Somalia. These groups have announced plans to organise a political convention in Somalia, signalling their intent to pursue a parallel political process if the government does not listen.

The Federal Government of Somalia does not fully control the country. Al-Shabab controls certain regions and districts and retains the ability to conduct operations well beyond its areas of direct control. Recently, the hardline group attacked a prison located near Villa Somalia, a stark reminder of the fragile security environment in which any electoral process would have to take place.

Given the extent of polarisation and the limited time remaining under the current mandate, the international community must intervene to support Somalia’s sixth political transition in 2026. The most viable way to ensure a safe transition is to promote an improved indirect election model. Somalia’s political class has long experience with indirect elections, having relied on this model five times over the past 25 years. However, even with political agreement, the improved indirect election model for the 2026 dispensation must meet standards of timeliness, feasibility, competitiveness, and inclusivity.

The current government mandate expires on May 15, 2026, and discussions are already under way among government supporters about a unilateral term extension. This must be discouraged. If a political agreement is reached in time, some form of technical extension may be necessary, but this should only occur while the 2026 selection and election processes are actively under way. One way to avoid this recurring crisis would be to establish a firm and binding deadline for elections. Puntland, for example, has maintained a schedule of elections held every five years in January.

The improved indirect election model must also be feasible, meaning it should be straightforward to understand and implement. Political groups could agree on a fixed number of delegates to elect each seat. Recognised traditional elders from each constituency would then select delegates. Delegates from a small cluster of constituencies would collaborate to elect candidates for those seats. This system is far from ideal, but it is workable under current conditions.

Unlike previous attempts, the improved indirect election model must also be genuinely competitive and inclusive. In past elections, politicians manipulated parliamentary selection by restricting competition through a practice known as “Malxiis” (bestman). The preferred candidate introduces a bestman, someone who pretends to compete but is never intended to win. For the upcoming election, the process must allow candidates to compete meaningfully rather than symbolically. A clear threshold of “no manipulation” and “no bestman” must be enforced.

Inclusivity remains another major concern. Women’s seats, which should account for about 30 percent of parliament, have frequently been undermined. Any political agreement must include a clear commitment to inclusivity, and the institutions overseeing the election must be empowered to enforce the women’s quota. Government leaders have also arbitrarily managed seats allocated to Somaliland representatives. Given the unique political circumstances, a separate, negotiated, and credible process is required.

Finally, widespread corruption has long tainted Somalia’s selection and election processes, undermining their integrity. In 2022, the presidents of the Federal Member States managed and manipulated the process. To curb corruption in the 2026 improved indirect election model, one effective measure would be to increase the number of voters per seat by aggregating constituencies. In practice, this would mean combined delegates from several constituencies voting together, reducing opportunities for vote buying.

The international community has previously pressured Somali political actors to reach an agreement, insisting there should be “no term extension or unilateral elections by the government” and “no parallel political projects by the opposition”. This approach, combined with the leverage the international community still holds, can be effective. Somalia’s political class must again be pushed into serious, structured negotiations rather than unilateral manoeuvres.

As before, the international community should clearly define political red lines. The government must refrain from any term extensions or unilateral election projects. At the same time, the opposition must abandon plans for a parallel political agenda, including Federal Member States conducting elections outside a political agreement.

Somalis have repeatedly demonstrated their democratic aspirations. What stands in the way is not public will, but elite polarisation and the instrumentalisation of reform for political survival. At this critical moment, the international community cannot afford to retreat into passivity. Proactive and principled engagement is essential to prevent a legitimacy collapse, safeguard the gains of the past 25 years, and protect the substantial investments made in peacebuilding and state-building in Somalia.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Two words that largely define the economy right now: Global reordering.

President Donald Trump’s Tariffs have landed as a shock to global trade. This is 2025.

Major economies are rewriting their playbooks, and alliances are being redrawn.

From Africa’s minerals boom to the global AI race, countries are scrambling for influence – even as debt piles up.

They are spending more, borrowing more and making tough choices from defence to climate policy and labour shortages.

And through it all, people are bearing high costs.

Foreign nationals arrested for illegally processing applications under Trump’s contentious programme for white South Africans.

South Africa has arrested and ordered the deportation of seven Kenyan nationals who were illegally working at a centre processing refugee applications for a highly controversial United States resettlement programme aimed at only white Afrikaners.

The arrests on Tuesday in Johannesburg followed intelligence reports that the Kenyans had entered the country on tourist visas and taken up employment despite South Africa’s Home Affairs Department having previously denied work visa applications for the same positions.

The seven individuals will be banned from re-entering South Africa for five years.

The operation has led to a new diplomatic dispute between Pretoria and Washington, adding to tensions that have escalated throughout 2025 over US President Donald Trump’s widely rejected claims that white South Africans face “genocide” and racial persecution.

The US State Department told CNN that “interfering in our refugee operations is unacceptable” and said it would seek immediate clarification.

CNN reported that two US government employees were briefly detained during the raid, though South Africa’s statement said no American officials were arrested.

The Kenyans were working for processing centres run by Amerikaners, a group led by white South Africans, and RSC Africa, a Kenya-based refugee support organisation operated by Church World Service. These organisations handle applications for Trump’s programme, which has brought small numbers of white South Africans to the US this year.

South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said the presence of foreign officials coordinating with undocumented workers “raises serious questions about intent and diplomatic protocol” and has initiated formal engagements with both the US and Kenya.

‘If you’re not white, forget about it’

Trump launched the resettlement programme in February through an executive order titled “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa”, cutting all US aid and prioritising Afrikaner refugees who he claims face government-sponsored discrimination.

In September, he set a historic low refugee ceiling of 7,500 for 2026, with most spots reserved for white South Africans.

Scott Lucas, a professor of US and international politics at University College Dublin’s Clinton Institute, previously told Al Jazeera the contrast between how Trump treats white South African refugees, and refugees of colour from other countries, showed a “perverse honesty” about Trump’s conduct and worldview.

“If you’re white and you’ve got connections you get in,” Lucas said. “If you’re not white, forget about it.”

South Africa’s government strongly rejects the persecution allegations.

Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola has said there is no data supporting claims of white persecution, noting that Afrikaners are among the country’s “most economically privileged” citizens.

Major Afrikaner organisations also rejected Trump’s characterisation.

AfriForum and the Solidarity Movement, representing some 600,000 Afrikaner families, declined his refugee offer, saying emigration would mean “sacrificing their descendants’ cultural identity”.

The Afrikaner enclave of Orania said: “Afrikaners do not want to be refugees. We love and are committed to our homeland.”

Deteriorating relations

Trump has repeatedly presented debunked evidence to support his claims, including a choreographed and televised ambush of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House visit.

Trump played video in May featuring images later verified as being from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and footage of a temporary memorial that Trump falsely claimed showed mass graves.

Relations between the countries have deteriorated sharply this year.

Trump expelled South Africa’s ambassador in March, boycotted Johannesburg’s G20 summit in November, and last month excluded South Africa from participating in the 2026 Miami G20, calling it “not a country worthy of Membership anywhere” in a social media post.

Just one day before the arrests, South Africa condemned its G20 exclusion as an “affront to multilateralism”.

When armed soldiers in the small West African nation of Benin appeared on national television on December 7 to announce they had seized power in a coup, it felt to many across the region like another episode of the ongoing coup crisis that has seen several governments toppled since 2020.

But the scenes played out differently this time.

Amid reports of gunfire and civilians scampering to safety in the economic capital, Cotonou, Beninese and others across the region waited with bated breath as conflicting intelligence emerged. The small group of putschists, on the one hand, declared victory, but Benin’s forces and government officials said the plot had failed.

By evening, the situation was clear – Benin’s government was still standing. President Patrice Talon and loyalist forces in the army had managed to hold control, thanks to help from the country’s bigger neighbours, particularly its eastern ally and regional power, Nigeria.

While Talon now enjoys victory as the president who could not be unseated, the spotlight is also on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The regional bloc rallied to save the day in Benin after their seeming resignation in the face of the crises rocking the region, including just last month, when the military took power in Guinea-Bissau.

This time, though, after much criticism and embarrassment, ECOWAS was ready to push back against the narrative of it being an ineffective bloc by baring its teeth and biting, political analyst Ryan Cummings told Al Jazeera.

“It wanted to remind the region that it does have the power to intervene when the context allows,” Cummings said. “At some point, there needed to be a line drawn in the sand [and] what was at stake was West Africa’s most stable sovereign country falling.”

Is a new ECOWAS on the horizon?

Benin’s military victory was an astonishing turnaround for an ECOWAS that has been cast as a dead weight in the region since 2020, when a coup in Mali spurred an astonishing series of military takeovers across the region in quick succession.

Between 2020 and 2025, nine coup attempts toppled five democratic governments and two military ones. The latest successful coup, in Guinea-Bissau, happened on November 28. Bissau-Guineans had voted in the presidential election some days before and were waiting for the results to be announced when the military seized the national television station, detained incumbent President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, and announced a new military leader.

ECOWAS, whose high-level delegation was in Bissau to monitor the electoral process when the coup happened, appeared on the back foot, unable to do much more than issue condemnatory statements. Those statements sounded similar to those it issued after the coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea. The bloc appeared a far cry from the institution that, between 1990 and 2003, successfully intervened to stop the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and later in the Ivory Coast. The last ECOWAS military intervention, in 2017, halted Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh’s attempt to overturn the election results.

Indeed, ECOWAS’s success in its heyday hinged on the health of its members. Nigeria, arguably ECOWAS’s backbone, whose troops led the interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, has been mired in insecurity and economic crises of its own lately. In July 2023, when Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the ECOWAS chair, he threatened to invade Niger after the coup there.

It was disastrous timing. Faced with livelihood-eroding inflation and incessant attacks by armed groups at home, Nigerians were some of the loudest voices resisting an invasion. Many believed Tinubu, sworn in just months earlier, had misplaced his priorities. By the time ECOWAS had finished debating what to do weeks later, the military government in Niger had consolidated support throughout the armed forces and Nigeriens themselves had decided they wanted to back the military. ECOWAS and Tinubu backed off, defeated.

Niger left the alliance altogether in January this year, forming the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) with fellow military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso. All three share cultural and geographic affinities, but are also linked by their collective dislike for France, the former colonial power, which they blame for interfering in their countries. Even as they battle rampaging armed groups like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the three governments have cut ties with French forces formerly stationed there and welcomed Russian fighters whose effectiveness, security experts say, fluctuates.

But Benin was different, and ECOWAS appeared wide awake. Aside from the fact that it was one coup too far, Cummings said, the country’s proximity to Nigeria, and two grave mistakes the putschists made, gave ECOWAS a fighting chance.

The first mistake was that the rebels had failed to take Talon hostage, as is the modus operandi with putschists in the region. That allowed the president to directly send an SOS to his counterparts following the first failed attacks on the presidential palace at dawn.

The second mistake was perhaps even graver.

“Not all the armed forces were on board,” Cummings said, noting that the small group of about 100 rebel soldiers had likely assumed other units would fall in line but had underestimated how loyal other factions were to the president. That was a miscalculation in a country where military rule ended in 1990 and where 73 percent of Beninese believe that democracy is better than any other form of government, according to poll site Afrobarometer. Many take particular pride in their country being hailed as the region’s most stable democracy.

“There was division within the army, and that was the window of opportunity that allowed ECOWAS to deploy because there wasn’t going to be a case of ‘If we deploy, we will be targeted by the army’. I dare say that if there were no countercoup, there was no way ECOWAS would have gotten involved because it would have been a conventional war,” Cummings added.

Quickly reading the room, Benin’s neighbours reacted swiftly. For the first time in nearly a decade, the bloc deployed its standby ground forces from Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone. Abuja authorised air attacks on rebel soldiers who were effectively cornered in a military base in Cotonou and at the national TV building, but who were putting up a last-ditch attempt at resistance. France also supported the mission by providing intelligence. By nightfall, the rebels had been completely dislodged by Nigerian jets. The battle for Cotonou was over.

At least 14 people have since been arrested. Several casualties were reported on both sides, with one civilian, the wife of a high-ranking officer marked for assassination, among the dead. On Wednesday, Beninese authorities revealed that the coup leader, Colonel Pascal Tigri, was hiding in neighbouring Togo.

At stake for ECOWAS was the risk of losing yet another member, possibly to the landlocked AES, said Kabiru Adamu, founder of Abuja-based Beacon Security intelligence firm. “I am 90 percent sure Benin would have joined the AES because they desperately need a littoral state,” he said, referring to Benin’s Cotonou port, which would have expanded AES export capabilities.

Nigeria could also not afford a military government mismanaging the deteriorating security situation in northern Benin, as has been witnessed in the AES countries, Cummings said. Armed group JNIM launched its first attack on Nigerian soil in October, adding to Abuja’s pressures as it continues to face Boko Haram in the northeast and armed bandit groups in the northwest. Abuja has also come under diplomatic fire from the US, which falsely alleges a “Christian genocide” in the country.

“We know that this insecurity is the stick with which Tinubu is being beaten, and we already know his nose is bloodied,” Cummings said.

Revelling in the glory of the Benin mission last Sunday, Tinubu praised Nigeria’s forces in a statement, saying the “Nigerian armed forces stood gallantly as a defender and protector of constitutional order”. A group of Nigerian governors also hailed the president’s action, and said it reinforced Nigeria’s regional power status and would deter further coup plotters.

Not yet out of the woods

If there is a perception that ECOWAS has reawakened and future putschists will be discouraged, the reality may not be so positive, analysts say. The bloc still has much to do before it can be taken seriously again, particularly in upholding democracy and calling out sham elections before governments become vulnerable to mass uprisings or coups, Beacon Security’s Adamu said.

In Benin, for example, ECOWAS did not react as President Talon, in power since 2016, grew increasingly autocratic, barring opposition groups in two previous presidential elections. His government has again barred the main opposition challenger, Renaud Agbodjo, from elections scheduled for next April, while Talon’s pick, former finance minister Romuald Wadagni, is the obvious favourite.

“It’s clear that the elections have been engineered already,” Adamu said. “In the entire subregion, it’s difficult to point to any single country where the rule of law has not been jettisoned and where the voice of the people is heard without fear.”

ECOWAS, Adamu added, needs to proactively re-educate member states on democratic principles, hold them accountable when there are lapses, as in the Benin case, and then intervene when threats emerge.

The bloc appears to be taking heed. On December 9, two days after the failed Benin coup, ECOWAS declared a state of emergency.

“Events of the last few weeks have shown the imperative of serious introspection on the future of our democracy and the urgent need to invest in the security of our community,” Omar Touray, ECOWAS Commission president, said at a meeting in the Abuja headquarters. Touray cited situations that constitute coup risks, such as the erosion of electoral integrity and mounting geopolitical tensions, as the bloc splits along foreign influences. Currently, ECOWAS member states have stayed close to Western allies like France, while the AES is firmly pro-Russia.

Another challenge the bloc faces is managing potential fallout with the AES states amid France’s increasing closeness with Abuja. As Paris faces hostility in Francophone West Africa, it has drawn closer to Nigeria, where it does not have the same negative colonial reputation, and which it perceives as useful for protecting French business interests in the region, Cummings said. At the same time, ECOWAS is still hoping to woo the three rogue ex-members back into its fold, and countries like Ghana have already established bilateral ties with the military governments.

“The challenge with that is that the AES would see the intervention [in Benin] as an act not from ECOWAS itself but something engineered by France,” Adamu said. Seeing France instigating an intervention which could have benefitted AES reinforces their earlier complaints that Paris pokes its nose into the region’s affairs, and could push them further away, he said.

“So now we have a situation where they feel like France did it, and the sad thing is that we haven’t seen ECOWAS dispel that notion, so the ECOWAS standby force has [re]started on a contentious step,” Adamu added.