Kenya

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Sunday that the country is more than capable of achieving the objectives of its military operation in the rebellious state of Tigray “by itself”.

Abiy issued the statement on Twitter, hours after the leader of the insurgent Tigrayan forces, Debretsion Gebremichael, said that his forces are fighting troops from neighbouring Eritrea in addition to Ethiopian troops.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The leader of Ethiopia’s Tigray region has confirmed firing missiles at neighboring Eritrea’s capital and is threatening more, marking a huge escalation as the deadly fighting in northern Ethiopia between regional forces and the federal government now spills across an international border.

Tigray regional President Debretsion Gebremichael, in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press, would not say how many missiles were fired at the city of Asmara on Saturday but said it was the only city in Eritrea that was targeted.

NAIROBI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said Thursday he planned to visit Kenya to discuss the measures to intensify the fight against the spread of COVID-19 pandemic after a notable 34 percent rise in new infections.

Nkengasong said during a weekly webinar meeting that he is also set to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the ongoing effort to support countries to handle the pandemic, which has recorded an eight percent increase across Africa.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The sound of heavy weapons erupted across the Ethiopian border town, and immediately Filimon, a police officer, started to run.

Now, shaken and scared, he pauses when asked about his wife and two small children, ages 5 and 2. “I don’t know where my family is now,” he said, unsure if they were left behind in the fighting or are somewhere in the growing crowd of thousands of new refugees just over the border in Sudan.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Up to 200,000 refugees could pour into Sudan while fleeing the deadly conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, officials say, while the first details are emerging of largely cut-off civilians under growing strain. Already at least 6,000 people have crossed the border.

Long lines have appeared outside bread shops in the Tigray region, and supply-laden trucks are stranded at its borders, the United Nations humanitarian chief in the country told The Associated Press in an interview.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — At least 30 armed Ethiopian troops and “large numbers” of refugees fleeing the fighting in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region have crossed the border into Sudan, the state-run SUNA news agency reports, while one diplomat says hundreds of people have been reported killed on both sides of Ethiopia’s conflict.

Ethiopia’s prime minister on Tuesday again vowed that his military will bring a speedy end to the week-long fighting in the heavily armed Tigray region and the removal of its leadership, which his government regards as illegal.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s prime minister on Friday said his government has carried out airstrikes against the forces of the country’s well-armed Tigray region, asserting that strikes in multiple locations “completely destroyed rockets and other heavy weapons” and made a retaliatory attack impossible.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Voters in Tanzania are going to the polls on Wednesday for a presidential election that the opposition warns is already deeply compromised by manipulation and deadly violence.

“My life is in danger,” the chairman of one of the East African nation’s top opposition parties, Freeman Mbowe of CHADEMA, tweeted early in the morning, asserting that “heavily armed gangsters” protected by police had raided his hotel and seized two of his security guards.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The Seychelles presidential election has seen an upset, with the electoral commission on Sunday declaring longtime opposition contender Wavel Ramkalawan the winner over incumbent Danny Faure. The ruling party has been knocked from power for the first time since 1977.

Opposition leader Ramkalawan, a 59-year-old priest who has largely devoted himself to politics, received 54% of the vote in the Indian Ocean island nation while Faure received 43%, the commission chair Danny Lucas said, calling the race “hotly contested.”

NAIROBI (Reuters) - About 300 militants from Mozambique attacked a village in southern Tanzania and killed an unknown number of people last week, Tanzania’s top police officer said, describing an attack claimed earlier by the Islamic State.

Inspector General of Police Simon Sirro said militants attacked the village of Kitaya in Tanzania’s rural Mtwara region bordering Mozambique.