African leaders, diplomats, survivors and those who killed and maimed will gather in Rwanda on Wednesday to remember the day 10 years ago when roadblocks sprang up around the capital, Kigali, and the genocide began.
![]()
The convoy leaves before dawn, snaking deep into Zululand while villages sleep. By first light we are at the rendezvous and ready for the final day of Operation Rolling Thunder. Helicopters clatter down on to the field and in groups of 14 soldiers and police officers scramble aboard as the machines rise and race towards mountain peaks.
Wearing a white dress and an uncertain smile, Irene Mutoni gazes from her cot, a two-year-old girl in a fading photograph. Her favourite food, says the caption, was banana and rice. Her favourite toy was a stuffed dog. Her first word was daddy. Her method of death was drowning in boiling water.
Close to two million Angolans could go hungry because their government has banned genetically modified (GM) food, the United Nations’s food agency warned this week. A shipment of 19 000 tonnes of maize from the United States may have to turn back because the Southern African state has become concerned about the environmental risks of biotechnology.
No image available
/ 30 January 2004
Liberia’s two rebel movements have jolted the country’s fragile peace process by demanding the resignation of the head of the transitional government, Gyude Bryant. ”The Lurd and Model are vehemently and unconditionally calling for the immediate, uncompromising and peaceful removal and subsequent replacement of Gyude Bryant … the commencement of disarmament,” a statement said.
No image available
/ 22 December 2003
President Lansana Conte of Guinea was on course to extend his 20-year rule over the impoverished west African country after elections on Sunday, despite failing health and opposition complaints of ballot-rigging. The chainsmoking Conte (69) was too ill to campaign much but aides denied that he was dying.
No image available
/ 15 December 2003
It could be a routine modelling assignment. Larry Mims and Carlos Cordero, fashion-shoot veterans, have flown to an exotic location to exhibit their muscled perfection against a lush backdrop. Vigour is the theme and they do it well, strutting, striding, exuding zest. But this is no photo shoot.
No image available
/ 8 December 2003
Across a savannah ruled by no one, three brothers shouldered a bamboo pole. Their nephew had a broken leg but there were no longer any doctors there — nor vehicles, nor roads, nor telephones, nor electricity. They strapped Bolnevi Ngonstala (13) into a chair, tied it to the pole and tramped south where there was rumour of a clinic.
No image available
/ 12 November 2003
A scheme that pays unemployed people to abseil down cliffs and hack plants with chainsaws is claimed to be a model for how the world should tackle invasive alien species. South Africa has been chosen to spearhead an international initiative against destructive plants and wild-life, after mobilising its township poor to save indigenous habitats.
No image available
/ 5 November 2003
The bulldozers were back in District Six last Tuesday, but this time it was to build, not destroy, and this time Noor Ebrahim was happy to see them. Three decades ago they rolled into his neighbourhood to erase a multiracial community that was an affront to apartheid, levelling houses, shops and cinemas to make way for a whites-only enclave.