In a video unveiled by leading Zimbabwean newspaper The Sunday Mail, president Emmerson Mnangagwa dismissed allegations he would run for an unconstitutional third term.

“There is not an iota of evidence where Zanu PF or I, as President, has ever expressed the violation of our Constitution,” the 81-year-old said.

“We in Zanu PF are very democratic and we obey the Constitution.”

Much attention has been drawn to a slogan heard at Zanu PF rallies in recent months ‘2030 vaMnangagwa vanenge vachipo’ (loosely translated as ‘2030 Mnangagwa will still be president’).

The party secured a supermajority in Parliament last February in disputed by-elections.

This left it closer to changing the constitution if it wishes.

Zimbabwe’s 2013 Constitution limits the presidential term of office to two five-year mandates and establishes a constitutional court.

A supporter of a hard line and heavyweight of the party in power (Zanu-PF) since independence, Mnangagwa became head of state at the end of a war of succession which opposed him to Grace Mugabe, the wife of president Robert Mugabe who was dismissed in 2017.

**The death toll from a make shift ferry boat that capsized off the northern coast of Mozambique on Sunday has climbed to nearly 100. Mozambique’s Maritime Transport Institute (INTRASMAR) on Mionday gave the latest count saying the overloaded fishing boat was not licensed to transport people. **

Manuel Loforte, from Mozambique’s Maritime Institute, said that the initial death toll of 91 rose to 96 after they recovered three more bodies late on Sunday and another two on Monday.

“As a consequence we see a shipwreck, which resulted in 91 deaths reported yesterday, and at around 23 hrs (11pm local time), we found another three bodies, totalling 94, and this morning we found two more bodies.”

The deaths included children and have at least 26 persons still missing according to local media. There were 130 people on the ferry and eleven had been hospitalised according to the administrator of the Island of Mozambique, told state-run Radio Mozambique.

Some people had been traveling to attend a fair while others were trying to “flee from Lunga to the Island of Mozambique for fear of being contaminated by cholera, which has affected that region in recent days,” the online outlet reported.

“I lost my brother’s children, of my second mother (step-mother). Because of this sinking of the ferry there in Quissanga, which was leaving Lunga, to come here, because of cholera” said Amade Juma, a victim’s uncle.

Other news reports quoted Jaime Neto, the secretary of state in Nampula province, as saying misinformation about an alleged cholera outbreak caused panic and had people board the boat, which ordinarily serves as a fishing vessel, to flee the area.

Authorities in Mozambique and neighbouring southern African countries have been trying to contain a deadly cholera outbreak that spread in recent months.

Many areas of Mozambique are only accessible by boats, which are often overcrowded.

Senegal’s ruling coalition candidate Amadou Ba has conceded defeat in the just concluded presidential election. Ba on Monday called Bassirou Diomaye Faye, to recognise the opposition candidate’s win in Sunday’s presidential election.

“Considering the trends of the presidential election results and awaiting the official declaration, I congratulate the president Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye on his victory in the first round,” Ba said in a statement on Monday.

Since Sunday evening when the polls closed, opposition party supporters have been celebrating on the streets around the country though the vote count is still on and results are not expected until later this week.

Voters have also praised the peaceful conduct of the election amid preveious concerns of a likely unrest. The months leading up to the election saw deadly protests ignited last year by the jailing of the popular opposition leader Ousmane Sonko.

“I’m satisfied because we can see that democracy is advancing in our country. We really hope that the new president, who is elected by the majority, will manage the country well” said Mohamed Mbaye, a Dakar resident.

This is Senegal’s fourth democratic transfer of power since gaining independence more than six decades ago.

A zookeeper at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Nigeria has lost his life in a fatal encounter with one of the lions under his care.

Olabode Olawuyi, who had been working at the university zoo for close to a decade, was attacked during a routine feeding session, according to the university.

Despite the efforts of his colleagues to intervene, Olawuyi sustained fatal injuries inflicted by one of the lions, leaving them unable to save him from the vicious attack.

University authorities have since euthanized the lion involved in the tragic event, ensuring the safety of both staff and visitors at the zoo.

The zookeeper, a veterinary technologist, had been “taking care of the lions since they were born on campus about nine years ago”.

“We never knew what came over the male lion that it had to attack [him],” the university’s public relations officer Abiodun Olarewaju said in a report by the BBC.

However, The university students’ union leader, Abbas Akinremi, told Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper that the attack was caused by “human error” after the zookeeper had forgotten to lock the door after feeding.

On social media, the issue has been leading trends with many sharing Nigerians on graphic images of the incident at the university in Osun state in the south-west.

The news of the incident is said to have sent the university community into mourning.

The university sent a team to the family of the deceased to console them.

Its vice-chancellor, Prof Adebayo Simeon Bamire, said he was “saddened” by the incident and ordered a thorough investigation “into the immediate and remote causes of the incident”.

Two South African soldiers were killed and three injured when a mortar landed in their base in eastern Congo amid increased unrest in the region, the South African armed forces said Thursday.

The South African National Defence Force, which oversees all of the country’s armed forces, said it believed the mortar explosion on Wednesday was a result of “indirect fire” and an investigation was underway to determine who was responsible.

South Africa has sent soldiers to Congo as part of the Southern African Development Community’s mission to fight against armed rebel groups in the east.

South Africa announced this week it would be sending a new contingent of 2,900 soldiers to eastern Congo. It wasn’t immediately clear if those killed and injured were part of that new deployment.

The base that was hit was in the North Kivu province, South African National Defence Force spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini said. The injured were taken to a hospital in the city of Goma.

Violence in the conflict-hit region has increased in recent weeks, with many blaming attacks on the M23 rebel group that has been fighting Congolese soldiers in the region for years.

The Congo government says M23 is receiving military support from neighboring Rwanda, which Rwanda denies.

But M23 has indicated in recent statements that it is in the midst of a new advance in eastern Congo, leading to fears the group is again targeting Goma, which it once seized 10 years ago.

More than 1 million people have been displaced by the conflict since November, aid groups say. That adds to the 6.9 million who already fled their homes in one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.

On Thursday, the Norwegian Refugee Council said the recent advance of armed groups toward the key town of Sake, near Goma, “poses an imminent threat to the entire aid system” in eastern Congo.

“The isolation of Goma, home to over 2 million people and hosting hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals who have fled clashes with armed groups, would bring disastrous consequences to the region,” the NRC said.

Haiti’s government announced Wednesday that it is working on an official agreement with Kenyan officials to secure the long-awaited deployment of a police force from the east African country.

High-ranking officials from both countries met in the U.S. for three days this week to draft a memorandum of understanding and set a deadline for the arrival of Kenyan police forces. The closed-door meetings included top U.S. officials and were held weeks after a court in Kenya blocked the U.N-backed deployment of police to help Haiti fight a surge in gang violence, saying it is unconstitutional.

It was not immediately clear if or how a memorandum of understanding could circumvent the court’s ruling, which the president of Kenya has said he would appeal.

Haiti’s government said in a statement that there were “intense discussions” to bring a memorandum of understanding into compliance with legislation of both countries.

“A final decision on the text should come early next week as well as its signature by both parties,” Haiti’s government said.

It said the talks also focused on the mission’s operations, logistics and compliance, as well as surveillance, required equipment and human rights issues.

The deployment was requested by Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in October 2022 and approved by the U.N. Security Council a year later. But it has since encountered multiple legal obstacles as gang warfare in Haiti’s capital and beyond continues to rise.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk recently noted that more than 800 people were killed, injured or kidnapped across Haiti in January, more than three times the number compared with the same month in 2023.