KANO, Nigeria, Feb 26 - Unidentified gunmen seized more than 300 girls in a nighttime raid on a school in northwest Nigeria on Friday and are believed to be holding some of them in a forest, police said.

Libya's prime minister-designate Abdul Hamid Dheibah is set to name a transitional government tasked with unifying the war-torn nation and leading it to elections in December.

Police in Cameroon have arrested nine people on suspicion of homosexuality, most of them at an HIV/AIDS care centre, an LGBT rights lawyer said.

The African Union is backing calls for drugmakers to waive some intellectual property rights on Covid-19 medicines and vaccines to speed up their rollout to poor countries, the head of its disease control body.

Liquid Telecom, majority owned by telecoms tycoon Strive Masiyiwa, raised $840 million in a bond sale to refinance debt and expand further into Africa.

Gunmen have killed 36 people in two attacks in Nigeria, a day after insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades amid worsening security facing Africa's most populous nation.

Niger opposition leader Mahamane Ousmane has claimed that he narrowly won the country’s presidential election.

Zimbabwe's 71-year-old Vice President Kembo Mohadi on Wednesday refuted accusations of sexual misconduct by an online news outlet, saying he is the victim of "political machinations".

Zimbabwe will buy an additional 1.2 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from China at a preferential price, President Emmerson Mnangagwa's spokesman said on Wednesday.

Two Malian soldiers have been killed in an ambush in a central region regularly hit by jihadist attacks, security sources and a local official has said.

Ghana has received the first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines from Covax, a global scheme to procure and distribute inoculations for free.

The body of the Italian ambassador killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo has arrived in Rome, as Rwandan Hutu rebels denied accusations they were behind the attack.

Applications for a second round of the R28 million Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge across the Africa region just opened, as big tech companies tussle with Australia about media funding.

Senegal began its coronavirus vaccination campaign on Tuesday with 200 000 doses that it purchased from China's Sinopharm, which it received last week.

Rwandan Hutu rebels have denied allegations they were behind the killing of the Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Fifteen members of a contingent of Ethiopian peacekeepers in South Sudan have refused to return to Ethiopia, the UN has said.

Guinea will launch an Ebola vaccination drive after a flight delayed by a Saharan dust storm arrived carrying thousands of jabs.

Sudan's central bank sharply devalued the currency on Sunday, announcing a new regime to "unify" official and black-market exchange rates and meet demands by foreign donors and the IMF.

Bobi Wine, who had disputed January election results, says "the courts are not independent" as he withdraws his case.

The president of Tanzania has urged its citizens to take preventive measures against the coronavirus after downplaying the disease for months.