LIMBE, CAMEROON - Three women referees created history Saturday at the African Nations Championship (CHAN) quarterfinals. Ethiopian referee Lidya Tafesse and her assistants, Malawian Bernadettar Kwimbira and Nigerian Mimisen Iyorhe, became the first women to control a match at a senior CAF male tournament. The breakthrough came two years after women referees handled matches at the African under-23 and under-17 Cup of Nations tournaments. Tafesse, a former professional basketball player, tolerated no foul play as she yellow-carded three Tanzanians within 10 minutes during the second half. African male footballers often dispute decisions against them, but most accepted without hesitation the rulings of Tafesse at the Stade Omnisport in the southwestern coastal resort. "Lidya r...

GENEVA - The U.N. Refugee Agency, or UNHCR, is warning that countries in the Sahel have reached a breaking point as unrelenting violence in the region has caused more than 2 million people to become displaced inside their own countries for the first time ever. Humanitarian needs in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger are surging as escalating violence sends an increasing number of people fleeing for their lives.  The U.N. refugee agency reports internal displacement in the Sahel has quadrupled in just two years and is rising. Already this year, the agency reports violence in Niger and Burkina Faso has forced more than 21,000 people to flee their homes.  The Sahel also is hosting more than 850,000 refugees, mainly from Mali.  This creates an additional layer of insecurity and increases...

HARARE, ZIMBABWE - A surge in coronavirus cases in Zimbabwe has included the deaths of two Cabinet ministers in 48 hours. The government announced Friday night that Transport Minister Joel Matiza had died of COVID-19. On Wednesday, the president's office said Sibusiso Busi Moyo, Zimbabwe’s minister of foreign affairs and international trade, had died of  complications related to COVID-19. Zimbabweans have taken to social media to blame the deaths on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government, which takes senior officials abroad for treatment instead of rehabilitating the country's collapsed health care delivery system. Critics say Mnangagwa and his predecessor, the late Robert Mugabe, never bothered to upgrade hospitals or adequately pay health workers, who have recently been on st...