A new BBC Africa documentary investigates what happened that day and why the survivors and the relatives of the victims, believe justice still has not been done.
444 children died when the Joola capsized. Elie Diatta's brother, Michel, ran a local football academy and had taken a group of children on a trip with him.
Michel escaped from the ship when it overturned, but didn't survive when he tried to save the children.
The BBC’s Global Disinformation team has found that one of Africa’s most popular pastors, Chris Oyakhilome, has been spreading anti-vaccine narratives to his followers through his sermons.
Chris Oyakhilome, known as 'Pastor Chris' founded the Christ Embassy church in Lagos, Nigeria, in the 1990s, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers worldwide.
We reviewed dozens of his sermons since 2023 and found he has been targeting the malaria vaccine.
As the first ever malaria vaccine is rolled out, Pastor Chris has falsely claimed the campaign is part of a depopulation plan and even claimed malaria was never a problem in Africa.
1. If you walk through the cobbled alleys of occupied East Jerusalem's Muslim quarter, you will come across a community of Afro-Palestinians. Their history is closely linked to one of the holiest sites in Islam. A thread by the BBC’s @rehakansara.
2. The Afro-Palestinian community, which numbers around 450, are descendants of pilgrims from Chad, Senegal, Sudan and Nigeria, who travelled eastwards to perform Hajj at Mecca and visit al-Aqsa Mosque but remained there.
3. Their enclave situated around Bab al-Majlis was once an Ottoman prison before the British took over Jerusalem in 1917. It is so close, the call to prayer can be heard echoing through the old city's streets.
So what are the key takeaway points: 1. Countries will "contribute... to transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner". It doesn't include any wording on the "phase out of fossil fuels" - something many governments wanted.
2. There is a recognition that global emissions will likely peak before 2025 - and that for developing nations this may be later.
🇬🇭🧵1/9 It's been a year since X, formerly known as Twitter, fired almost all its staff at its only Africa office without severance pay, following the abrupt termination of their appointment by new owner Elon Musk. Here’s a thread on what’s happened since then.
2/9 The staff, who number fewer than 20, had only just moved into Twitter's new office in Accra, Ghana, after working remotely for about eight months because of Covid. Here’s a picture of them at the time of the takeover – many of whom subsequently lost their jobs.
3/9 They were initially told that, although their contracts were being terminated, they would be paid to work for one more month. But they were immediately locked out of their emails and no further salary payments were made.
🧵🇬🇭Ghana's parliament has unanimously supported amendments to the anti-gay bill would make identifying as LGBT punishable with a three-year prison sentence.
People who campaign for LGBT rights could also face up to 10 years in jail.