The World Health Organization has issued an action plan to address allegations that its staff and contractors engaged in widespread sexual abuse and exploitation during a recent Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. An independent commission established to investigate these allegations issued a searing report September 28. It found international staff and local hires responding to an

The health outreach workers who drove past Lama Mballow’s village with a megaphone handed out T-shirts emblazoned with the words: “I GOT MY COVID-19 VACCINE!” By then, the women in Sare Gibel already had heard the rumors on social media: The vaccines could make your blood stop or cause you to miscarry. Women who took it wouldn’t get pregnant again.

As dozens of African migrants traversed the Mediterranean Sea on a flimsy white rubber boat, a small aircraft circling 1,000 feet above closely monitored their attempt to reach Europe. The twin-engine Seabird, owned by the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch, is tasked with documenting human rights violations committed against migrants at sea and relaying distress cases to nearby ships and authorities

Claims from Nigeria that the leader of one of the fastest-growing Islamic State terror group affiliates is dead are being met with extreme caution in the United States. Officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department said Friday they were aware of accounts that Islamic State West Africa Province leader Abu Musab al-Barnawi had been killed, but some said

The World Food Program warns it will be forced to cut food rations for half-a-million people suffering from acute hunger in northeast Nigeria unless it receives urgently needed funding. Millions of people in Nigeria’s crisis-ridden Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states are suffering from years of conflict and insecurity and the socio-economic fallout from COVID-19. The WFP says 4.4 million people

The World Health Organization’s endorsement of the world’s first malaria vaccine marks a major advance against the mosquito-borne illness, which kills some 265,000 children in Africa annually. Bitrus Yusuf pours syrup into a measuring cup to give to his three-year-old daughter and grandson who are sick with malaria. He said the mosquito-borne parasite that causes the illness is all too

The United States is donating 17 million doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to the African Union, bringing the total American donation to the continent to 67 million doses. The U.S. previously donated 50 million doses to the AU, which has 55 member states, including some of the world’s poorest nations. The new tranche of 17 million will

Suspected jihadis killed 10 villagers in an attack on a mosque earlier this week in western Niger’s Tillaberi region, local sources said Wednesday. The attack on Monday occurred in the village of Abankor in the tri-border region where Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso meet. “The attackers arrived on motorbikes during evening prayers and the victims were in the mosque when

Police shot a protester to death Wednesday in Eswatini, the latest casualty in months of demonstrations that have left more than a dozen people dead. Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday that the man was killed during a clash between police and a group of commuter bus operators demonstrating for political reform in the small town of Malkerns. “A man was shot

The United States is sending more than 3.5 million doses of the two-shot Pfizer vaccine to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, a White House official told VOA on Tuesday. “We are sharing these doses not to secure favors or extract concessions,” the official said. “Our vaccines do not come with strings attached. We are doing this with the singular objective