A total of 100 of the schoolchildren abducted from a Nigerian Catholic school and released over the weekend have been hosted at a government-organized ceremony.

Fifty of the 303 schoolchildren abducted from a Catholic school in Nigeria’s Niger state have escaped and are now with their families.

Gunmen abducted 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers from St. Mary’s School in Niger state, Nigeria, according to an updated tally issued Saturday by the Christian Association of Nigeria.

Gunmen have attacked a Catholic school in Nigeria, abducting more than 200 schoolchildren and 12 teachers.

A 54-pound meteorite from Mars has sold for over $5 million at a New York auction, setting a world record.

The U.N. food agency’s regional head says Nigeria is facing “an unprecedented hunger crisis,” and the need for food is rising across west and central Africa while funds are shrinking.

Humans are the only animal that lives in virtually every possible environment, from rainforests to deserts to tundra.

Niger’s junta leader, Abdourahamane Tchiani, has been sworn in as the country’s president for a transition period of five years under a new charter that replaces the West African nation’s constitution.

Olivier Dubois, a French journalist, was kidnapped by JNIM, a branch of al-Qaida in Africa's Sahel region, while on his way to interview one of the group's leaders in northern Mali.

A U.S. Defense Department official says the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Niger is complete.

Military junta leaders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso have ruled out returning their nations to the West Africa regional bloc whose division could further jeopardize efforts to undo coups and curb violence spreading across the region.

The U.S. military commander in Niger says all American forces and equipment will leave a small base in the West African country this weekend and fewer than 500 remaining troops will be out of a critical drone base in August.

Defense chiefs of West Africa on Thursday proposed an ambitious plan to deploy a 5,000-strong “standby force” to fight the region’s worsening security crises, a measure that analysts say might not work due to challenges of funding and division within the regional bloc.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says he doesn’t see a significant issue with Russia moving some troops onto an airbase in Niger where a small number of U.S. forces remain.

The U.S. military plans to return to Chad within a month for talks about revising an agreement that allows it to keep troops based there.

A UN report says drug seizures have soared in the West African Sahel region in recent years, indicating the conflict-ridden region is becoming an influential hotspot for trafficking.

A top Pentagon official says that the U.S. has not received a formal request from Niger’s junta to depart the country, saying instead it has received mixed signals on whether the hundreds of U.S. troops based there are no longer welcome.

The military juntas ruling Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger say they have agreed to create a joint force to fight extremist violence in their nations.

West Africa’s regional bloc known as ECOWAS has lifted travel, commercial and economic sanctions imposed on Niger which were aimed at reversing the coup staged in the country last year.

West Africa’s regional bloc says the coup-hit nations of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are in haste to withdraw their membership of the association without following its rules of exit.

Three West African nations of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have quit the regional economic bloc known as ECOWAS.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is pitching the United States as a better security partner for Africa in place of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, which he accuses of exploiting coup-hit and conflict-hit nations turning to it for help in the continent’s Sahel region.

A court of the West African regional bloc has ordered the release and reinstatement of Niger’s democratically elected president.

Niger fashion designer Alia Bare took center stage at the Joburg Fashion Week with a collection that she hopes will spread a positive image of her troubled country, suffering from instability and economic sanctions that followed a military coup earlier this year.

The French troops who are being forced out of Niger were seen as a key line of defense in efforts led by the West, particularly the U.S. and France, to fight against jihadi violence in Africa’s hard-hit Sahel region.

Nearly all the world’s on stage, and all the men and but 20 women merely players.

The European Union is growing increasingly concerned about “domino effects” as yet another military coup rocks Africa.

The West African bloc ECOWAS has rejected the proposal by Niger’s mutinous soldiers for a three-year transition to democratic rule, with a commissioner describing the slow timeline as a provocation.

The U.S. is making precautionary plans to evacuate two key drone and counter-terror bases in Niger if that becomes necessary under the West African nation’s new ruling junta.

Niger’s junta told a top U.S. diplomat that they would kill deposed President Mohamed Bazoum if neighboring countries attempted any military intervention to restore his rule, two Western officials told The Associated Press.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says political instability in Niger resulting from a military takeover that deposed the country's president this week threatens Washington's economic support to the African nation.

An American aid worker and a French journalist kidnapped and held by Islamist extremists were freed on Monday, four days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a visit to West Africa.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Ethiopia and Niger next week as the Biden administration accelerates a push to engage with Africa to counter China's growing influence on the continent.

Heavy rains and flooding that swamped Nigeria, Niger, Chad and the surrounding region between June and October this year was made 80 times more likely by climate change, a rapid analysis by scientists found.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says his country is interested in a major gas exploitation project in Senegal.

A group of international aid organizations says West Africa is facing its worst food crisis in a decade due to increasing conflict, drought, flooding and the war in Ukraine that is affecting food prices and worsening an already disastrous situation.

Local Niger government officials say at least 18 people were killed and 7 injured when a gold mine collapsed in the Maradi region.

Authorities in northern Nigeria have announced three separate groups of kidnapped students being freed within a 24-hour period.

French President Emmanuel Macron says his country will withdraw more than 2,000 troops from an anti-extremism force in Africa’s Sahel region starting in the coming months.

FILE- In this April 4, 2019 file photo, Niger's President Elect Mohamed Bazoum is photographed at a G7 meeting in Paris, France. Niger's government says Wednesday March 31, 2021 that an attempted military coup was thwarted overnight at the presidential palace by security forces. The coup attempt took place just two days before Bazoum's inauguration, raising fears of more violence in the coming days. The coup attempt raises fear of more violence coinciding with newly elected President Mohamed Bazoum’s inauguration on Friday. Several people have been arrested in connection with the coup attempt while “others linked to the events are being actively sought,” government spokesman Abdourahmane Zakaria said Wednesday afternoon.

Macron joined by video from Paris a summit organized in N'Djamena, Chad with the leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania. It is made up of soldiers from Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania who operate in cooperation with French troops. “This was unexpected a year ago,” Armand Joseph Kabore, director of Labo Citoyennetes, a think tank in Burkina Faso told The Associated Press. ”(The G5 Sahel) force has to be more present, more of a deterrent, and capable of efficiently opposing forces of evil,” he said. ___Mednick reported from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

WASHINGTON – An American citizen kidnapped in the West African nation of Niger this past week has been rescued in a U.S. military operation in neighboring Nigeria, U.S. officials said Saturday. The man was taken from his farm in Massalata in southern Niger early Tuesday morning by armed kidnappers who demanded a ransom from the man’s father. “This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the U.S. Department of State. No U.S military personnel were injured during the operation,” the department said in a statement. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the operation and spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details .

File-This June 4, 2020, file photo shows Women and children walk in a makeshift site for displaced people in Kongoussi, Burkina Faso. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the funds will help some 10 million people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger for the remainder of this year and through next year with nutrition, food, health services, water and sanitation, shelter, education, protection and support to survivors of gender-based violence. Both Guterres and Lowcock appealed for $2.4 billion to cover the remaining months of 2020 and 2021. U.N. spokesman Dujarric said donors pledged $985 million for this year and $704 million for 2021 and beyond. The United States was next pledging $274.8 million followed by Denmark with $183.1 million, the European Union with $122.8 million and Germany with $118.2 million.

Compared to the average of the last five years, acute food insecurity has increased by a staggering 514% in Burkina Faso, 130% in Mali and 144% in Niger, his agency said. “What I hope is through this conference, for these three countries, we’ll get up to about a billion dollars for 2020,” Lowcock said. “That will certainly enable us to keep the situation under control and contain the worst difficulties. He called for more girls to go to school and stay there, a reduction in infant and maternal mortality, and improvements in clean water availability. “So you don’t get to choose where you have to start the journey, but you do have to take the first steps.”

In a separate briefing Thursday, a World Health Organization official said just 51% of health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa have basic water services. Health experts say Africa has fared far better than the dire predictions early in the pandemic. Experts say possible factors include Africa’s relative youth, the later arrival of the virus and swift lockdown measures. The council reflects a world order of decades ago that few people in Africa recognize, some said. “Unfortunately," he said, “less than two months later, a fifth horseman of the apocalypse — very destructive, the coronavirus — has appeared.”

A number of elections are set to be held later this year involving incumbents, including in Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Niger. The two countries are both part of the G5 Sahel regional force along with Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso which is trying to battle extremists across the Sahel. Burkina Faso was long spared the kind of extremist violence seen across the border, but that has changed. Coupcast, a project of One Earth Future using historical data to predict the likelihood of a coup attempt, put Burkina Faso in the top 10 African countries likely to see a coup in last year's report. Coupcast also put Niger in the top 10 African countries likely to see a coup in their 2019 report.