Across Africa in five minutes or less

CAMEROON

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the world’s most neglected number of displaced people, according to a new report by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Unveiling its annual index, the aid agency said on Thursday that a recorded two million people were displaced last year in the DRC. And with 27 million people, including more than three million children who do not know where their next meal is coming from, it has the greatest number of people in the world who face food insecurity.

BURUNDI

At least 15 people have been killed in central Burundi, local media report. The attack on Saturday evening was in Muramvya province, where 12 people died in a similar attack in May. According to eyewitnesses, gunmen blocked a road with large stones under cover of darkness and then shot at the vehicles.

Two minibuses were set ablaze. Several wounded passengers were taken to hospitals. Burundi’s interior ministry described the attack as terrorism. It is not clear who was behind it.

LIBYA

Libyan expectations are high and candidates are beginning to express interest in running for the elections scheduled for December this year.

These have been delayed three years following a military campaign on the capital Tripoli by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar’s Tobruk-based government in the east.

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa’s rand was flat at the close of the week, with investors weighing conflicting signals from the US Federal Reserve that pushed the dollar away from two-month highs. Local investors were left to mull the higher inflation rates announced on Wednesday while balancing the growing pandemic and third wave complications in South Africa. On Sunday, president Cyril Ramaphosa put the country back into lockdown level 4, which is expected to reverberate through the economy in the coming weeks. On Monday, the rand starts the week trading at R14.16/$, R16.89/€ and R19.68/£.

ZIMBABWE

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa at the weekend implied that government will make vaccination compulsory in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, but experts have warned that the edict if enforced, would be in violation of human rights.

Speaking at the graduation of 1 200 prison officers in Ntabazinduna near Bulawayo on Saturday, Mnangagwa said no one had the right to refuse the jab.

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