South Africa's president cut short a visit to Britain to return home and deal with violent protests in a provincial capital, calling late Friday for calm and saying more discussions on the "serious" issues were needed.

More than 200 child soldiers were released by armed groups in war-torn South Sudan, part of a series of releases that will see almost 1,000 children freed in the coming months.

More than 60 percent of the well over one million refugees who have poured into neighboring Uganda are under the age of 18, government and United Nations officials say.

Residents in the town of Timbuktu reported hearing two large detonations Saturday near a camp for the U.N. mission known as MINUSMA.

Even as Islamic State group fighters flee the Middle East and cause fear across Africa's Sahel region it is al-Qaida that poses the more serious long-term threat, the U.S. military's special operations commander in Africa said.

Militants wearing explosive belts blew themselves up as they tried to infiltrate a military base in Egypt's central Sinai, killing eight soldiers and wounding 15 others, the military said on Saturday.

Uganda is "positively considering" Israel's request to take in 500 rejected Eritrean or Sudanese migrants, a government minister said Friday, the first official confirmation of an agreement to accept African migrants whose planned deportations have caused widespread protests in Israel.

Congo on Friday took the extraordinary step of boycotting an international conference that reaped hundreds of millions of dollars to help its people, saying the Central African country's humanitarian crisis has been exaggerated.

Egypt and Russia resumed direct flights on Thursday, more than two-and-a-half years after they were suspended in the wake of a bombing that brought down a Russian passenger plane over the Sinai Peninsula.

A bomb exploded at a packed football stadium in southern Somalia and killed five spectators while wounding several others, police said Thursday evening. The Somalia-based, al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group immediately claimed responsibility.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, but officials have not said if flight data recorders have been recovered from the wreckage, how many people were on the plane or whether anyone survived.

Egyptian military prosecutors referred Hesham Genena, the country's former top auditor, to a military court over statements deemed insulting to the armed forces, state media reported on Thursday.

A key U.S. senator is pressing the Army to set aside one of its new Security Forces Assistant Brigades for missions in Africa, which are now being carried out by a mix of rotating units.

Six months after the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Niger led to questions about the military's presence in the West African nation, the U.S. special operations command in Africa on Wednesday opened its annual counterterror exercise in the face of a growing extremist threat.

As relations with the United Arab Emirates sour over the seizure of millions of dollars in cash, Somalia announced Wednesday it would end UAE funding for its armed forces.

The corpses of 17 civilians were laid out in front of the United Nations peacekeeping offices in Central African Republic's capital on Wednesday in a furious protest against a new operation against armed groups that has targeted a largely Muslim neighborhood.

Army defense chiefs, military attaches and other senior officers from about 40 African nations will meet in Nigeria’s capital next week to discuss security cooperation on the continent.

The focus of the two-week Flintlock 2018, which involves eight African and 12 western countries, is the day-to-day threats faced by local forces on the ground, according to the top U.S. commander of special operations troops in Africa.

Analysis

While soldiers held power for 29 years and have always played an internal security role in Nigeria, their deployment has surged since former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari won the presidency in 2015. Operating in all 36 states, they're dealing with a range of crises: Islamist militant attacks in the northeast, simmering unrest in the oil-producing Niger River delta, conflict between crop farmers and herders and widespread robberies and kidnapping.

U.S. air operations in Djibouti remain suspended Friday after two Marine Corps aircraft were involved in crashes earlier this week, but the pause hasn’t put a stop to air strikes in neighboring Somalia, U.S. Africa Command said.

The U.S. Army has tapped Maj. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier Jr. to serve as the next head of U.S. Army Africa, where he will oversee efforts to train indigenous forces for counterterrorism fights on the continent. Cloutier will arrive after a period of tumult for U.S. Army Africa headquarters.

All U.S. military flights in Djibouti have been grounded and a major military exercise canceled after two recent accidents in the east African country, the U.S. military said Thursday.

The pilot, assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 162 and embarked aboard the USS Iwo Jima, was in stable condition while being evaluated at Camp Lemonnier’s expeditionary medical facility, according to a U.S. Navy news release.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of Nelson Mandela and for decades one of South Africa's most prominent and polarizing figures, died April 2 at a hospital in Johannesburg. She was 81.

Authorities have captured the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee who managed to escape from Kennedy Airport while waiting to board a flight to be deported to Senegal, the New York Daily News has learned.

gallery

A U.S.-led naval exercise that brought together 31 countries to strengthen efforts to combat piracy, drug smuggling and human trafficking ended Thursday in West Africa.

A high-ranking al-Qaida leader was killed Saturday in an American airstrike against the terrorist organization’s North Africa affiliate in the desert of southwest Libya, U.S. Africa Command announced Wednesday.

About 40 U.S. airmen and one Air National Guard C-130 from West Virginia spent last week in Senegal teaching medical evacuation techniques to members of nine different regional air forces.

The U.S. is seeking an agreement that will allow more visiting troops as training programs and missions in the country expand, according to the U.S. embassy in Ghana.

A budding dispute over plans to develop a port in Somaliland risks destabilizing the Horn of Africa region, the semi-autonomous territory's foreign minister said.

Boko Haram Islamic militants brought back nearly all of the 110 girls they had kidnapped from a boarding school last month, dropping them off in the middle of the night Wednesday with a warning: "Don't ever put your daughters in school again."

Egypts President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi seems convinced that a genuinely contested election could destabilize the country, allow his Islamist foes a back door into politics or interfere with his high-octane, single-handed drive to revive the battered economy.