Gunmen have killed a ranger in the Virunga National Park, home to endangered mountain gorillas in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where armed groups also roam.

The King of Eswatini, Africa's last absolute monarchy, has accused pro-democracy demonstrators of depriving children of education after they joined protests this month.

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 4 878 719 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.

Eswatini has shut down the internet for two hours as pro-democracy marchers headed to the capital.

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Three days of fighting in a land dispute in north western DR Congo left 13 people dead, many injured and around 50 homes burned to the ground, officials said.

Three Kenyan officers are in custody over the disappearance of a self-confessed serial killer described as a "bloodthirsty vampire", barely three months after his arrest.

Southern African troops have driven jihadists out of northern Mozambique but will stay in the country indefinitely to ensure the situation remains under control, a regional bloc said.

A telecoms blackout will be maintained in large swathes of north west Nigeria because it is helping the armed forces crack down on bandits responsible for a wave of abductions and attacks.

Rwandan police have announced the arrest of six people including the owner of a popular YouTube channel and three opposition party members for "spreading rumours".

Pro-democracy protests have flared up in Eswatini, months after authorities loyal to the southern African country's absolute monarch quashed an earlier round of demonstrations.

A second case of Ebola has been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a health official has said, less than a week after the death of a young boy raised fears of another major outbreak.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has the reputation for being one of the world's most graft-prone countries, ranking 170th out of 180 nations in Transparency International's 2020 Corruption Perception Index.

Kenya has rejected a top UN court ruling that decided mostly in favour of Somalia in a maritime row, saying it was profoundly concerned by the boundary it set in a part of the Indian Ocean believed to be rich in oil and gas.

Suspected jihadists killed 10 villagers in an attack on a mosque earlier this week in western Niger's Tillaberi region, local sources said.

Police shot a man dead during clashes with a group of commuter bus operators protesting for political reform in the small kingdom of Eswatini, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

The Republic of Congo has announced a 45-day ban on weddings, a move that it said would help to stem the spread of coronavirus.

Seven miners have died and five are missing after a makeshift goldmine collapsed in eastern DR Congo's South Kivu province after heavy rain, local sources said.

A Namibian court ruled has that the son of a gay couple, born via surrogacy in South Africa in 2019, is a Namibian citizen by descent, in a decision hailed as "big win" for same-sex couples.

The powerful younger brother of deposed late Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been sentenced to two years in prison for 'obstructing the course of justice', the official APS news agency has reported.