Five schoolchildren were killed and several others were seriously injured when a gust of wind blew their bouncy castle into the air at an end-of-term party in Australia yesterday.

Two students were killed and 12 injured when a truck rammed into them near their school in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, police said yesterday.

Gunmen in Nigeria attacked a bus in the country’s northwestern Sokoto state, causing a fire that killed 23 people, police and the governor’s spokesman said yesterday.

An explosion on Wednesday in central Mali killed seven United Nations peacekeepers and seriously wounded three others, the U.N. mission said on Twitter.

A massive fire tore through an overcrowded prison in Burundi before dawn yesterday, killing dozens of inmates and seriously injuring many more, the country’s vice president said.

A Kenyan police officer yesterday shot dead six people, including his wife, and wounded two others before turning the gun on himself, police said.

Ethiopia yesterday accused the United States of “perpetuating a destructive narrative” after Washington and its allies sounded the alarm over reports that the authorities were unlawfully detaining citizens on ethnic grounds.

Rising sea temperatures and overfishing threaten coral reefs in the western Indian Ocean with complete collapse in the next 50 years, according to a groundbreaking study of these marine ecosystems.

At least 12 soldiers and “dozens of terrorists” were killed in a battle in western Niger, the defence ministry announced Sunday, in the conflict-wracked “three borders” zone.

South Africa is preparing its hospitals for more admissions, as the Omicron coronavirus variant pushes the country into a fourth wave of Covid-19 cases, President Cyril Ramaphosa said yesterday.

Sudan’s military will exit politics after elections scheduled for 2023, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan told Reuters in an interview on Saturday, adding that the deposed former ruling party would have no role in the transition.

At least 20 people drowned yesterday when a bus travelling to a wedding in central Kenya was swept off a bridge into a flooded river, police said.

Ethiopia said yesterday that pro-government forces had recaptured of Shewa Robit, around 220 kilometres (135 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa by road, after Tigrayan rebels claimed control of the town last week as part of their advance towards the capital.

An overloaded boat carrying dozens of passengers, mostly children aged eight to 15, capsized late on Tuesday in northwest Nigeria’s Kano state, a rescue agency spokesman said.

Brazilian health regulator Anvisa said on Tuesday that two Brazilians had tested positive for the Omicron Covid-19 variant, the first reported cases in Latin America.

Sudanese security forces deployed tear gas against tens of thousands of protesters gathering in central Khartoum on Tuesday to oppose military rule following last month's coup.

On Friday, November 19, Raquel Viana, Head of Science at one of South Africa's biggest private testing labs, sequenced the genes on eight coronavirus samples - and got the shock of her life.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed yesterday urged Tigrayan rebels to surrender, claiming government forces were nearing victory just one week after he vowed to lead military operations at the front.

Morocco will push for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, King Mohammed VI said yesterday, almost a year after his country renewed ties with the Jewish state.

Canada said Sunday it has detected its first cases of the new Omicron strain of Covid, in two people who had traveled recently to Nigeria.