In a report by the BBC, there has been an upsurge of gender-based violence across the continent, the rise in part attributed to the fact that COVID-19 has kept more people at home and increased contact between victims and abusers.
Go deeper: More than 2,700 women were murdered last year – one women every three hours. And before the lockdown, an average of 100 rape cases was reported every day.
Gender-based violence is continental and countries like Nigeria have also seen a spike in the number of rape cases. But all the figures are just a fraction of what is really going on.
WHO declares Nigeria, Cameroon polio free
The World Health Organization (WHO) has certified Nigeria and Cameroon to be free of Wild polio, a crippling disease that usually affects children under five.
What else? The UN health agency is expected to formally present Nigeria with a certificate and also declare Africa free of the wild polio virus. It has taken nearly 40 years and two decades of intervention from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to achieve this milestone.
Nigeria’s head of primary health care agency Dr Faisal Shuaib described the achievement as a “proud moment for us and indeed all Nigerians“.
Cameroon’s Health Minister Malachie Manaouda had on Wednesday announced that the country had been certified free of polio.
Burundi swears in Evariste Ndayishimiye as president
Burundi has sworn in Evariste Ndayishimiye who won the country’s May 20 elections as the country entered the post-Nkurunziza era. Ndayimishiye was originally supposed to take over in August but the Constitutional Court ruled that the investiture be brought forward following the death of outgoing Nkurunziza.
One slide of his life: Ndayishimiye, a father of six, is known as a practising roman catholic, who also emphasises the indispensability of God in politics. He is popularly known in Burundi as Neva – believed to be combination of his names – “N” for Ndayishimiye and “eva” for Evariste. He has served as secretary-general of the ruling party (CNDD-FDD) until January 2020 when he was appointed flag bearer of the party.
‘Use Black Lives Matter trend to make stop systemic racism‘
Rustenburg Girls’ High School (RGHS), a prestigious school in Cape Town, has been given until June 24 to come up with plans on how it’s going to address systematic racism within its institution and embrace diversity.
Go deeper: According to a memorandum signed by the matric class of 2019, the past pupils demand free professional counselling to staff and students whose mental health has suffered as a result of the alleged discrimination at the school.
In the ultimatum, the former pupils urged the school to use the Black Lives Matter campaign as an “opportunity to begin the journey of genuine transformation” as it has so far “failed” its past and present pupils.
Coronavirus dashboard
There are now 275,327 cases in Africa, 7,395 deaths and 125,316 recoveries.
China: ‘We will supply any Covid-19 vaccine to Africa first, free of charge’.
SA’s biggest non-food retailer, Edcon, has served 22,000 of its employees with notices of retrenchments as it blames load-shedding and the initial 45-day hard lockdown for its collapse.
