Nita Bhalla

Banners and bandanas at the ready, young Kenyans faced one final job before taking to the streets last week to mark the death of more than 60 fellow protesters in anti-government demos a year ago.

Write their own eulogies - just in case.

One year after Kenya's Gen Z protests against a tax-heavy finance bill, digital rights activists say authorities are increasingly cracking down on online criticism, with one prominent blogger recently killed in police custody.

More than 60 people were killed in last year's protests, and President William Ruto subsequently abandoned plans to raise 346 billion Kenyan shillings ($2.68 billion) in new taxes.

Emily Ounyesiga, 38, beams with pride as she talks about the bakery she runs in Uganda's capital Kampala - a vibrant, bustling space filled with the sweet aromas of freshly baked bread and pastries.

In 2017, Ounyesiga was duped by a recruitment agent and trafficked to work as a live-in nanny in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The United Nations is warning countries in northwest Africa to boost monitoring and begin early control measures as swarms of desert locusts move into the region.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), locust activity has intensified over the past three months, with large infestations of the crop-ravaging pests arriving in Algeria, Libya and Tunisia.

Africa's vast reserves of critical minerals, which include lithium, cobalt, copper and manganese, are increasingly vital for the global shift to clean energy and new technologies.

But as the world races to secure these resources, Africa stands at a crossroads: will the mineral boom drive sustainable development and prosperity, or is it likely to deepen environmental and human rights concerns?

For years Luis Treminio has provided guidance to farmers in El Salvador, using a U.S.-backed famine monitoring system to boost crop production and help prevent hunger.

Armed with public bulletins and regular food security alerts produced by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), Treminio would relay the critical data to farmers.

A suspected U.S. airstrike on a migrant detention centre in Saada, Yemen, last week killed at least 68 African migrants and injured dozens more, casting a spotlight on a perilous and often overlooked migration route.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians and Somalis cross the Gulf of Aden in overcrowded boats and trek through war-torn Yemen, braving smugglers and deserts to get to Saudi Arabia where they hope to find work.

With clouds gathering over western Kenya ahead of the rainy season, people typically prepare to spray their homes with insecticide to kill the malaria-carrying mosquitoes sure to swarm when the downpours come.

But now, the people of Busia and Migori counties will not have this life-saving protection.

As Sudan's civil war escalates into its third year, women and girls are bearing the brunt of the crisis. Displaced, vulnerable and targeted, they are facing unprecedented levels of sexual violence, warn aid workers. 

Sudanese women were at the forefront of the 2019 revolution that led to the ousting of president Omar al-Bashir, who took power in 1989.  

With more than 30 years experience as a humanitarian worker in Sudan, Muna Eltahir thought she had seen it all.

The northeastern African nation has in recent years witnessed mass public protests and coups and is embroiled in an almost two-year civil war which has pitted the Sudanese army against rebel Rapid Support Forces.