BBC News Africa

Chad has started preparations for the planned referendum due to take place on 17 December, on a new constitution aimed at returning it to civilian rule.

On Monday the government launched an initiative to revise and update the list of the electoral register from the 2021 biometric file.

A team comprising of the Minister of Territorial Administration, who is also chairman of the national committee in charge of organising the referendum, and other government officials were in the Moyen-Chari region for the launch.

The new electoral register is expected be published on 12 November to pave the way for campaign activities.

Provisional results of the referendum will be announced on 26 December before being transmitted to the Constitutional Court for validation.

A new constitution aimed at returning Chad to civil rule was approved on 27 June by a majority of the members of the Transitional National Council.

However, there have been deep divisions among the government, opposition, and civil society groups over the provisions of the new constitution.

Chad is currently run by transitional President General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who took over in April 2021 following the death of his father President Idriss Déby in a military operation.

Ghana’s Central Bank has increased key interest rates 30% to curb the country's soaring inflation.

This is a 0.5% increase.

The hike was announced on Monday at the end of its monetary policy meeting.

“A hike in rates is the best way to go in the midst of the crisis,” financial analyst Richmond Frimpong told the BBC.

This makes it more expensive to borrow money, and is intended to reduce consumer spending.

The West African nation has been grappling with a battered economy marred by inflation currently over 42%, huge public debts and a cost-of-living crisis.

Last Friday, the World Bank said about 850,000 more Ghanaians were pushed into poverty by the end of 2022 owing to the rising cost of living marred by a loss in purchasing power, and an increase in food prices.

Africa’s largest gold producer has received $600m (£518m), the initial tranche of a $3bn bailout programme from the International Monetary Fund aimed at stabilising its economy while it embarks on debt restructuring and other economic policies aimed at boosting revenues.

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There is outrage in Nigeria after a leaked memo showed the Lagos State government had approved $77,000 (£60,000) for a mass burial of 103 people, who have been linked to the historic 2020 #EndSars protest against police brutality.

Some Nigerians have expressed shock and said the victims scheduled to be buried were demonstrators allegedly killed by the army at the Lekki toll gate shooting on 20 October during the protests.

The number of those who died has long been a source of controversy in Nigeria, with the military initially denying anyone had been killed. However, a Judicial Panel of Inquiry has reported that nine protesters were killed and four presumed dead.

The government denies the 103 bodies are from the Lekki incident, describing such interpretations as misleading.

The permanent secretary to the Lagos state’s Ministry of Health, Dr Olusegun Ogboye, explained that the bodies were picked up from at least 12 locations across the state "in the aftermath of #EndSARS violence and community clashes, including a jailbreak at Ikoyi Prison.

"Peddlers of the news are deliberately misinterpreting and sensationalizing a letter from the Lagos State Government Public Procurement Agency."

He said the government had approved the mass burial after no families claimed the 103 bodies.

Tens of thousands of Nigerians took to the streets in October 2020 against police brutality and also called for the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit to be disbanded.

MINISTRY OF SANITATION AND WATER RESOURCES/ FACEBOOKCopyright: MINISTRY OF SANITATION AND WATER RESOURCES/ FACEBOOK

Ghana's former Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources Cecilia Dapaah has been arrested by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) after the reported theft of $1m (£780,000) cash from her house.

According to the OSP, the former minister was placed under house arrest on Sunday 22 July on “suspected corruption and corruption related offenses”.

Many Ghanaians and anti-corruption campaigners have questioned how a public servant could have so much money stashed in their home amid an economic crisis in Ghana.

“Ms Dapaah is being questioned by authorised Officers of the OSP,” the statement read.

Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo accepted her resignation on Saturday following a public outcry.

The money was uncovered after two of her domestic staff were accused of stealing $1m in cash, along with €300,000 and several million Ghana cedis, as well as some personal items.

"I can state emphatically that those figures do not represent correctly what my husband and I reported to the police, I am very much aware of the import of such stories around someone in my position," Ms Dapaah said.

"I intend to cooperate fully with all state agencies to enable them fully establish the facts," she added.

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Algeria says 15 people have been killed in wildfires during a continuing severe heatwave.

The deaths happened in the mountainous Bejaia and Bouria regions, where more than 7,000 firefighters are battling blazes.

Meanwhile, 1,500 people have been evacuated. Algeria’s Meteorological Office has warned that temperatures of more than 48C (118F) are likely to continue until the end of the month in the north of the country.

The news follows weeks of high temperatures across North Africa - reaching 50C in some areas.

Since the heatwave began, electricity consumption in Algeria is reported to have reached the highest level in the country’s history.

Read more here

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A Sudanese refugee has told the BBC’s Newsday radio programme that he, and other Sudanese refugees in Egypt, are “struggling” and “don’t have any income,” on the 100-day anniversary of the start of the civil war in Sudan.

“We cannot find work, we cannot find nothing, so it’s really horrible here,” Moez Ahmed added.

The fighting in Sudan between the military and the Rapid Support Forces militia has displaced millions of people, seen the death of around 3,000 people, and does not show any concrete sign of resolution.

In order to survive, Mr Ahmed has been receiving money from his friends in other countries, like Qatar and the UAE.

“I don’t think this war” will “end very soon” he lamented, adding that half of his family is “still stuck in Sudan” surrounded by military aircraft and the sounds of ammunition.

They have “no supplies, no food, no water”, he said.

Read more about the war in Sudan:

• Sudan's Darfur terror: The radio presenter who gave birth and kept walking

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Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Mali's armed forces and foreign fighters thought to be from Russia's Wagner Group of widespread abuses, including executing dozens of civilians and torturing detainees.

It said the atrocities were committed over the last seven months in response to the presence of Islamist armed groups in the central Mopti and Ségou regions.

Eyewitnesses said in March they saw helicopters flying low, shooting at villagers.

In February they found the bodies of eight men who had just been detained.

Mali's foreign minister said he was not aware of the abuses and denied that any foreign forces were involved in operations with the military.

HRW wants independent experts to investigate. It warns that the imminent departure of UN peacekeepers will severely affect civilian protection and the monitoring of abuses by all sides.

AFPCopyright: AFP

About eight people have been confirmed dead after a fuel tanker exploded in Nigeria’s south-west Ondo state.

Residents had been scooping up spilt fuel from the tanker which was involved in a road accident on Sunday night, state police said.

“The tanker exploded on its own killing eight people, and injured many others who are currently being treated in the hospital,” the police spokeswoman told the BBC.

Nigerians have been struggling to pay for fuel recently, after prices jumped in the wake of the removal of a petrol subsidy.

A Somali military source has told the BBC that 25 soldiers were killed when a man rigged himself with explosives and detonated himself among soldiers who were queuing up at the Jale Siad College camp.

The military has not made any official comment on the incident.

Forty-eight others were said to have been injured and taken to hospitals in Mogadishu.

The man who blew himself up was wearing a military uniform and entered the camp with a false identity, the military source, who did not want to be named, told the BBC.

Islamist militant group al-Shabab said one of its fighters had carried out the bombing, saying 73 soldiers had been killed and 124 injured.