Mozambican pianist Mel Matsinhe has been named as of the top acts performing next week at Ségou’Art, an annual arts festival in Mali.
She will be only representative of a Portuguese-speaking country and will join the band Kôré Yeelen.
The “Festival Sobre o Niger” as it is also known – as the city is on the right bank of the River Niger – includes concerts, fairs, workshops, conferences and lectures.
“This is one of the largest and most stable cultural and art festivals in Africa and the invitation to represent an opportunity for me to establish a creative connection with different artists,” Matsinhe told Maputo’s Notícias newspaper.
In addition to the performances, the pianist, who is the founder of the Xiluva School of Arts in Maputo, will participate in two conversations about her experience as a creative entrepreneur and the impact of technologies on the development of the sector in Africa.
The UN children’s agency has called for the evacuation of several hundred child detainees trapped in a Syrian prison seized by Islamic State (IS) militants.
Unicef said it had received “deeply worrisome reports of fatalities” among the boys at Ghwayran prison in Hasaka.
Some detainees have sent audio messages saying they have seen children killed and that there is no food or water.
Kurdish-led fighters, backed by US forces, have retaken most of the prison after six days of fierce clashes.
IS attempted to stage a mass breakout last Thursday, in the jihadist group’s biggest operation since its military defeat in Syria in 2019.
Unicef said most of the 850 children, some as young as 12 years old, detained by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – the militia alliance that controls much of north-eastern Syria – were being held at Ghwayran.
Most are Syrian and Iraqi boys, while the rest are nationals of 20 other countries who have refused to repatriate them.
None of the children have been charged with any crime and Unicef said they “should never have been held in military detention in the first place”. They had been transferred to Ghwayran after being deemed too old to remain in detention camps for the families of IS militants.
A 17-year-old Australian sent a series of audio messages from the prison earlier this week, in which he said he had suffered a head injury in an US-led coalition air strike and appealed for medical help.
“I’m very scared, there’s a lot of people dead in front of me,” he said. “I’m scared I might die at any time because of the bleeding. Please help me.”
Letta Tayler of Human Rights Watch tweeted that she had been in contact with an 18-year-old American and a Canadian man inside the prison who told her that 15 to 20 boys could have been killed and that they feared they would be shot if they tried to leave.
“We’re starving. We’re thirsty. There’s no food, there’s no water, there’s no medical supplies at all. We’re scared. We just need someone to help us get out of here, to help get us to safety,” she quoted the American as saying.
Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore said urged all parties to reach a negotiated solution to end the stand-off.
“A first step should be to open a safe corridor for humanitarians and others to access and evacuate the children in the detention facility, with a view to providing them with the urgent care and protection they need.”
The SDF has accused the IS members holed up inside the northern wing of the prison of using the children as “human shields”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said at least 181 people had been killed in the fighting, including 124 militants and 50 police, SDF fighters and prison guards.
The detention facility housed about 4,000 male inmates, many of them suspected IS members.
Floods as a result of tropical storm Ana are continuing to affect southern Africa, with more than 70 people estimated to have been killed across Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar.
Schools have been turned into emergency shelters in Madagascar‘s capital, Antananarivo, as flood waters cause chaos in the country.
To date, say 41 people in Madagascar have died and over 100,000 have been forced to flee their homes.
Mass displacement and dozens of deaths have been recorded there and in Malawi, where the authorities have been struggling to get the lights back on after storm Ana destroyed infrastructure and led to a nationwide power cut.
Mozambique is facing ever more frequent and intense tropical storms and cyclones, and in recent days 18 people have died and more than 10,000 homes have been destroyed by the floods.
The Prime Minister, Carlos Agostinho do Rosário, says whilst not contributing much to climate change Mozambique is being hit hard. He wants international support to help build the country’s resilience.
The UN secretary general has mourned as a “true pioneer” Ghana’s first female brigadier general, Constance Emefa Edjeani-Afenu, who died on Monday.
Antonio Guterres paid tribute to Brig Gen Edjeani-Afenu for making history in peacekeeping as the first female deputy force commander of a UN mission in Western Sahara.
During her more than 40 years of military service she served in numerous UN peacekeeping missions – including in Lebanon, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The UN chief hailed her as having worked hard to promote gender inclusiveness and increasing the number of women serving in the military.
A member of Gabon’s football federation (Fegafoot) was arrested on the tarmac of Libreville’s international airport moments after the team’s plane returned from the Africa Cup of Nations on Tuesday.
Four members of Gabon’s football community have now been arrested following allegations made against of them of raping and sexually abusing minors.
These include Patrick Eyi, a former coach of Gabon’s national Under-17 team widely known as ‘Capello’, as well as three local lower-tier coaches.
Mombo ‘was a predator’
Prior to December’s arrest of Capello – who denies allegations he raped and sexually abused young footballers – Gabon’s Sports Ministry had said the sexual abuse of minors in the country by multiple accused perpetrators could number ‘hundreds of alleged victims’.
BBC Sport Africa has sought comment on the case from Gabon’s Sports Minister but received no reply.
Gabon’s President Ali Bongo, meanwhile, has previously described the claims as “very serious”.
Mombo is accused of sexually abusing young players and demanding sex as a condition of them securing places in national teams.
Mombo has blamed the allegations on his re-election as head Gabon’s senior football league last June and questioned the timing of the piece, as it came out on the eve of Fegafoot’s executive committee elections.
“I was an international referee, am today president of the league and I have never been in the centre of these things which I condemn,” he said earlier this month.
“I am going to use all legal means to clean my reputation.”
Fifa investigation opened
Following the reports, investigations have been opened by football’s world governing body Fifa, the Gabonese government as well as Fegafoot.
“Given the seriousness of the allegations being made, we can confirm that Fifa’s independent ethics committee has opened an investigation and is currently looking into the matter,” said a Fifa spokesman.
While in Cameroon, Fegafoot’s media officer explained that his organisation has launched an internal investigation to “effectively encourage the victims to speak out [and] allow young people to free themselves.”
“The Gabon football federation is co-operating with Fifa’s independent ethics committee to get to the truth,” Moussa Ngoma told BBC Sport Africa.
“We want to get to the truth. The ethics commission has put measures in place to permit those involved with football to denounce this kind of thing.”
“We are talking about paedophilia – the taking of innocence – it is completely reprehensible. The people who carry out these crimes will be punished. It is important to let justice do it’s job and that’s the position of the football federation.”
Support for alleged victims
One of Gabon’s squad members at the Nations Cup, winger David Sambissa, expressed his support for the alleged victims and hopes that the various investigations by the government, Fifa and Fegafoot can determine the truth.
“I am sad about the people involved – the victims – they have all my support,” he told BBC Sport Africa.
“I leave this to the politicians, police and people in charge to take care of it.”
One alleged victim told The Guardian that sexual abuse of minors in Gabonese football has been the ‘reality for decades’.
However, it is not just football that affected by paedophilia claims/allegations – with an official from tennis and another from taekwondo also have been arrested in recent weeks following accusations made against them.
In court earlier this month, taekwondo official Martin ‘Chaka’ Aveira admitted having abused minors in the sport.
The US has rejected Russia’s demand to bar Ukraine from Nato, amid warnings Russia might invade its neighbour.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was giving Russia a formal response to its demands to resolve the Ukraine crisis.
Mr. Blinken gave no concessions but said that he was offering Russia “a serious diplomatic path forward, should Russia choose it”.
A Russian minister said his country would study Mr. Blinken’s response, delivered in coordination with Nato.
Russia had issued a written list of its concerns about the expansion of the Nato military alliance and related security issues.
Among them was a demand for Nato to rule out the possibility of Ukraine and others ever joining the alliance.
In recent weeks, Russia has been amassing large numbers of troops on the Ukraine border – something which Western countries have seen as preparation for a possible invasion. Russia denies this.
Mr Blinken said the US response made its “core principles” clear, including Ukraine’s sovereignty and its right to choose to be part of security alliances such as Nato.
“There should be no doubt about our seriousness of purpose when it comes to diplomacy, and we’re acting with equal focus and force to bolster Ukraine’s defenses and prepare a swift united response to further Russian aggression,” he said.
“It remains up to Russia to decide how to respond,” he added. “We’re ready either way.”
The secretary of state said the US had sent three shipments of military “assistance” this week – including Javelin missiles and anti-armour weaponry, along with hundreds of tonnes of ammunition and equipment.
Mr. Blinken also denied any rift or difference of opinion between the US and its European allies. Nato, he said, had prepared its own set of proposals which “fully reinforces ours and vice versa”.
But the US document will not be made public.”Diplomacy has the best chance to succeed if we provide space for confidential talks,” the Secretary of State said.
Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance’s document had also been delivered to Moscow, and while he was willing to listen to Russia’s concerns, all nations had the right to choose their own security arrangements.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, said earlier on Wednesday that Mr Stoltenberg had “lost touch with reality”, when asked about Nato boosting its presence near Russia’s borders.
