A ceasefire in West Africa's longest-running civil conflict could give aid agencies the confidence to invest in young people A ceasefire announced on 29 April 2014 by rebel leaders in the southern Senegalese region of Casamance has renewed hopes for prosperity for its youth. The 32-year conflict has rendered thousands of young people unemployed, unskilled or displaced from their villages. Development...
Former Arsenal and France star returns to country of his birth, to check in on efforts to improve education on and off the field In an oceanfront bar at the Radisson Blu Hotel in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, Patrick Vieira reflected on his footballing career. He couldnt help but marvel at his good fortune. Dakars corniche ouest bore little resemblance to the dusty back streets across town where...
President has made progress on healthcare, political stability and poverty but development and the economy require boost In the streets of Grand Yoff, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Dakar, Senegal, the Sunday market is in full swing. But Boubacar Biaye, 21, loitering close to his joiner's shop, is anything but busy. He has had no work for the past six months, for lack of custom. In 2011 he often...
Girl describes ordeal of attack and premature childbirth, and speaks of her anger at being unable to attend school The 10-year-old girl who was raped but unable to terminate her pregnancy due to Senegal's ban on abortion has given birth to twin boys. In an interview with the Senegalese women lawyers' association, the girl, who has just turned 11, was asked whether she was pleased that the rapist her...
A project aimed at protecting forests in Senegal's Casamance region has helped locals lay aside their political differences Last month, deep in a forest in the Casamance region of Senegal, members of surrounding communities gathered to watch the hypnotic spin of the palm-leaf covered Kumpo , a mythical tribal figure who promotes harmony. There was nothing unusual in the festivities, save that until...
Efforts of human rights campaigners thwarted by Napoleonic law allowing abortion only in life-or-death circumstances A 10-year-old girl who is pregnant with twins after she was raped by a neighbour has been forced to continue with her pregnancy after human rights campaigners lost their fight to secure a legal route to abortion. Continue reading... ...
Virus has claimed 84 lives and jumped borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia, raising concerns that it could sweep across region Late last month, villagers in Guinea's remote south-eastern region of Nzérékoré were greeted by a sight so alarming that many barricaded themselves indoors. A group of doctors dressed in protective suits and helmets were visiting the centre of an Ebola epidemic...
From colonial cartographers to digital depictions the continent is being sold short, says Think Africa Press About halfway through Jonathan Swift's boisterously witty epic poem On Poetry: A Rhapsody , the 18th century Anglo-Irish satirist briefly turns his attention to maps of Africa, writing: So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants...
Guinea faces an epidemic of a 'magnitude never before seen', with nearly 80 deaths so far. So what's being done to stop its spread? The medical aid charity Médecins sans Frontières warned this week that Guinea faces an Ebola epidemic of a magnitude never before seen as the nations president appealed for calm amid a rising death toll. Since January, Guinea health authorities have reported...
Neighbouring Senegal closes borders as EU pledges 500,000 in race to stop virus spreading towards capital Conakry Guinea is racing to contain a deadly Ebola epidemic spreading from its southern forests to the capital Conakry, as neighbouring Senegal closed its border. The EU pledged 500,000 (£413,000) to fight the contagion at the weekend, while the Senegalese interior ministry said border crossings...
$50m grants scheme will support delivery of reproductive health services in Uganda, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Nicaragua Grassroots organisations are to share in a multi-million dollar project to improve family planning and reproductive health services for women and girls in Africa and Latin America. ...
s fisheries minister. "The giant ships, like the Kiyevska Rus that we are currently pursuing for illegal fishing, trawl small pelagic fish and grind it into animal feed," Haïdar el Ali said. "Small pelagics [fish that swim near the surface] are a food staple in the entire Sahel region. In a single day those ships can trawl what an artisanal crew takes in a year. Countries like Russia, Ukraine, Korea...
When Downton Abbey’s Lady Cora went to Sierra Leone, it turned into a PR disaster. Here’s some advice to charities ...
s capital, Dakar, women watch as the pirogues (fishing canoes) unload their catch. The women are far from happy. The nets are almost empty, but they expect worse when a Russian factory opens in Senegal to convert fish into meal. It will be the last straw for their fish-drying and curing business. The trade, traditionally plied by women, is essential to preserve the seafood, which is sold on to consumers...
s record shop near the Gare du Nord in Paris was a key meeting point for African music lovers, an equivalent of Sterns in London . It was not long before Sylla's new record production company, Syllart, began to co-operate with Sterns on distribution, introducing British audiences to a succession of some of the finest African popular albums of the 20th century. The most recent, and...
When two Senegalese photographers messed with some very familiar screen moments, they were taken aback by the racial dimension to the response, says Missla Libsekal ...
t call them "Americans" if they were from Brazil and the United States, even though the distance between the two is the same – and the economic conditions as different. You don't have a film called Out of Asia and you rarely go to Oceania on holidays (instead you talk of vacations in Australia, New Zealand or another island). Yet for a continent of one billion people three times the size of the US,...
s seizure has provoked a diplomatic row with the Russian government, which suggested Greenpeace had orchestrated the seizure of the trawler in retaliation for Russia's detention of the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise in October 2013, following its activists' protest against Gazprom's oil drilling in the Arctic. The Arctic 30 were detained though finally released, as were two members of the band Pussy...
s voice. In the drowsy hum of the aeroplane, his words crackled, and I thought I heard something about preparing to land. Could I have slept so long? I looked at the time. It was only three hours into the Lagos-Atlanta flight. The flight attendants were hurrying back and forth. The pilot was still speaking. "We have an emergency on board, and we have had to divert the flight to Dakar." I could feel...
Bruno Metsu, the French manager who led the Senegal team to World Cup quarter-finals in 2002, has died aged 59 ...