The Nigerian army has said this morning that it rescued 97 people from the Boko Haram militant group in an operation on Thursday.

Much of what we have reported on this so far has focused on a dispute over the army's claim that one of the 97 was part of the group of girls abducted in Chibok in 2014.

But there is some more detail on the military operation itself.

The Nigerian army said on its Facebook page that troops "killed 35 Boko Haram terrorists and recovered several arms and ammunitions" in the Damboa Area of north-eastern Borno State. 

Colonel Sani Usman Kukasheka, spokesman for the Nigerian Army, told the BBC's Newsday that the group was mostly made up of women and children.  

Rescue teams are currently looking for more debris from the crashed EgyptAir plane:

Ugandan police are saying that 20 people have been abducted in the north of the country, close to the South Sudanese border, the AFP news agency reports.

Police blamed the attack, which happened on Tuesday, on "suspected militia members from South Sudan", the AFP quotes a local police chief as saying.

The security forces say they are now working on the rescue.

Eritrea is getting ready to celebrate 25 years since the nation was founded. 

The BBC's Mary Harper is in the country ahead of the celebrations next week.

Decorations have already gone up:

Police in Tanzania have arrested three people in connection with what it called a "terrorist-style" attack on a mosque in which three people died (see 09:02 entry).

No group has claimed responsibility.

There are more details comings out on the doubts cast over the Nigerian army's claim that a second so-called Chibok Girl has been found. 

The army maintained she was one of the 219 abducted by Boko Haram in 2014. 

Yakubu Nkeki, the head of the Chibok Abducted Girls Parents group, told AFP news agency that the military had not contacted him to identify her. They had done this for the first girl, Amina Ali.

This second girl was said to be Serah Luka. 

But Mr Nkeki said his records showed this name isn't one of the ones on his list of abducted girls. 

She told troops and civilian vigilantes she was a Christian pastor's daughter originally from Madagali, in neighbouring Adamawa state, and had been in Chibok to sit her exams.   

But Mr Nkeki also told AFP that none of the abducted Chibok girls were from Madagali.

Image source, AFP

South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will announce whether it will reopen a corruption case against President Jacob Zuma on Monday, the Reuters news agency reports.

In a court ruling last month Judge Aubrey Ledwaba described the prosecutor's decision to drop the case in 2009 as "irrational".

The NPA was then left to decide if it wanted to reinstate the charges.

Image source, Reuters

It may be time to revise your Scrabble strategy.

The Wall Street Journal has done a thorough investigation, external into Nigeria's recent success in international Scrabble tournaments and found the secret is short words.

It's been a long-held strategy to try and get seven letters onto the board to get a 50-point bonus.

But every extra letter on the board is another opening for an opponent and could use up valuable letters.

This short-word approach saw Nigerian Wellington Jighere win the world championship in Australia last year.

Image source, Getty Images

Wall Street Journal has renamed him the Rachmaninoff of rack management and says he is changing the game.  

The article points out that his winning word - felty - was just five letters long.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has offered condolences to the families of victims of the EgyptAir plane crash. 

His office said in a statement:

VIPs have started arriving at South Africa's Fort Hare University for its centenary celebrations despite two nights of violent protest, South Africa's News 24 has reported., external

Students reportedly set fire to some buildings in the campus in protest to the money being spent on the celebrations.

There has been a wave of student protests in South Africa over the last year, demanding financial help to study.

President Jacob Zuma is due to speak at the celebration later today.

This tweet suggests there is a heavy police presence:

  ENCA journalist Sikelelwa Mdingi tweeted this picture last night:  

Quartz explains, external that Nelson Mandela's alma mata Fort Hare was founded in 1916, external as the country’s first university for black people under colonialism.

It also educated a number of other anti-apartheid and anti-colonial figures.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has been tweeting about discussions with representatives from the UN security Council:

Kenya's plan to close the Dadaab refugee camp, home to more than 300,000 Somalis, also came up.

The plan has attracted criticism from the UN's refugee agency and many NGOs.

When the debris from EgyptAir Flight MS804 is brought ashore it will be examined by air crash investigators from several different countries. 

The investigation will be led by Egyptian Ayman el-Mokadam. He will be joined by French and British investigators as well as an expert from Airbus, the manufacturer of the aircraft. 

We've already posted about the news, based on a WHO report, external, that average life expectancy in Africa has risen by nearly 10 years since 2000 (see 09:02 entry).

But within the continent (and within countries) there is still a big spread.

Algeria sits at the top of the list with an average life expectancy of 75.6 years.

Sierra Leone is at the bottom with 50.1 years.

North Africa and the continent's island nations seem to be doing particularly well.

Here are the top ten:

1. Algeria - 75.6
2. Tunisia - 75.3
3. Mauritius - 74.6
4. Morocco - 74.3
5. Cape Verde - 73.3
6. Seychelles - 73.2
7. Libya - 72.7
8. Egypt - 70.9
9. Sao Tome - 67.5
10. Senegal - 66.7

Ethiopia is 16th on the list with an average life expectancy of 64.8 years, Kenya is 22nd with 63.4, Ghana is 25th with 62.4, Somalia is 47th with 55 and Nigeria is 48th with 54.5.

Image source, AFP

The Egyptian military has issued a statement saying it has found some debris from the missing plane. There's no confirmation from any other source.

An African Union human rights report has backed calls for an international police force to be sent to Burundi, the AFP news agency reports.

Last year the AU's peace and security council proposed an intervention force for the country, where there's been political tension since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced that he would run for a third term more than a year ago.

But African heads of state rowed back on this after opposition from Burundi.

AFP says that the rights report is based on what monitors observed during a visit at the end of last year.

Image source, AFP

Image source, AFP

A spokesman for the Chibok girls' parents has cast doubt on the Nigerian army's claim that a second of the so-called Chibok girls has been rescued. 

Yakubu Nkeki said that the girl's name is not on the families' list of those missing.  

A group of over 200 girls were abducted from Chibok Secondary School in 2014 by the Islamist militants Boko Haram and the campaign to find them garnered worldwide attention under the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. 

One of the main #BringBackOurGirls campaigners also cautions that care must be taken to establish the girl is indeed one of the group of over 200 who were abducted from Chibok:

Read more on the BBC News website.

A full day after an Egyptair plane dropped off the radar close to Cairo, no debris has yet been discovered. 

Rescue teams are continuing to search the eastern Mediterranean Sea for wreckage.

Egyptian officials initially thought wrecked plane parts had been found, but later admitted they were wrong. 

A BBC correspondent there says the authorities are under pressure to respond competently and compassionately to the disaster.

Image source, Reuters

Life expectancy in Africa is rising twice as fast as the rest of the world according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO report says that since the year 2000 life expectancy in Africa has risen by almost 10 years. 

Now the average person on the continent can expect to live to 60 years of age. But that's still 20 years less than a baby born in one of 29 high-income countries.

Dr Ties Boerma from the WHO told Newsday that one of the reasons is that immunisation has decreased child mortality.

Sammy Awami
BBC Africa, Dar es Salaam

Tanzanian police are saying that three people have died in what they call a "terrorist-style" attack on a mosque in Mwanza, in the north-west of the country.

Mwanza Police Commander Ahmed Msangi told journalists that about 15 people with face masks, machetes, axes and black flags entered the mosque at 20:00 local time (17:00 GMT) on Thursday evening as prayers were under way.

Then they started attacking the worshippers.

Several people were injured, including three who eventually died of their wounds.

The victims include the imam Ferouz Ismail Elias.

The exact motive for the attack is not clear, but the police are saying that those responsible were angry about the police detaining fellow Muslims and the people in the mosque doing nothing about it.

The gruesome attack comes on the back of growing fears of the rise of religious fundamentalism in the country.

Today’s African proverb:

Image source, AFP

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