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Mogadishu, Somalia - A deadly car bomb blast targeting a security checkpoint near the Presidential Palace in the Somali capital has killed at least five people and wounded several others.

Security officials at the scene told Reuters news agency on Tuesday the checkpoint 500 metres from the palace was rammed by a car bomb driven by a suicide attacker, causing the explosion outside a theatre.

Gunmen have killed at least 17 people - mostly women and children - after invading a farming community in central Nigeria, drawing condemnation from Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Armed men on motorcycles and in a car carried out the attack in Zaki Biyam in Benue state on Monday, police spokesman Moses Yamu told AFP news agency on Tuesday.

The UN refugee agency has criticised Cameroon for the forced return of hundreds of refugees to north-east Nigeria after they had fled from the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency.

The UNHCR said forced returns had "continued unabated" despite an agreement earlier this month.

A Video of a white man threatening a black woman inside a popular restaurant in South Africa has caused outrage.

The film of the incident at a Johannesburg branch of the Spur chain of restaurants has been widely shared.

 An oil tanker has been hijacked by suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia, reports say, the first such hijacking in the region in five years.

The ship sent a distress signal on Monday evening, saying it was being approached by high-speed boats.

Aid workers employed by a US-based Christian charity have been abducted in famine-hit South Sudan and negotiations were ongoing for their release.

The local aid workers were taken from a village near Mayendit in Unity state, where a famine has been declared, 680km northeast of the capital, Juba.

The circumstances of the kidnappings were unclear.

Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown as president of Egypt in an uprising in 2011, will be released from detention in a military hospital after a six-year legal battle over accusations of involvement in the killing of protesters.

"He will go to his home in Heliopolis," Mubarak's lawyer Farid el-Deeb said, adding the ageing former president would likely be released on Tuesday or soon after, but would be barred from leaving the country pending an ongoing corruption investigation.

 Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote group, is now richer than Donald Trump, Republican front-runner; Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea football club and Oprah Winfrey, the richest black woman, put together.

Dangote, who came in at the 51st position of the 2016 ranking by Forbes Magazine, is also richer than the combination of all other Nigerians who made the list.

Despite losing $300 million from $15.7 billion (N3.1 trillion) to about $15.4 billion, (N3.05 trillion) in the latest rankings, Dangote remains the richest black billionaire anywhere on the planet.

At $15.4 billion, the 58-year-old is richer than Abramovich ($7.6 billion), Oprah ($3.0 billion) and Trump $4.5 billion.

 A one-month-old girl abducted in an apparent car-jacking in the South African city of Durban on Friday has been found safe and well.

Police stopped a vehicle between Durban and Pietermaritzburg at about midnight on Saturday and found Siwaphiwe Mbambo. Three people have been arrested, one of them the baby's mother, police said.

Two suspects had allegedly car-jacked her vehicle, driving off with the baby.

International aid groups have criticised South Sudan's decision to sharply increase foreign worker visa fees, warning it would aggravate a humanitarian crisis in the famine-hit country.

South Sudan's government recently announced it would charge $10,000 for foreigners working in a "professional" capacity, $2,000 for "blue collar" employees and $1,000 for "casual workers" from March 1.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said on Friday he will continue to rest and undergo further medical tests in Britain within weeks, after returning home from two months of medical leave.

Eleven soldiers have been killed and five wounded in an attack on a military base in Mali as rival armed groups surrounded the city of Timbuktu.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack near the border with Burkina Faso on Sunday but armed groups, including al-Qaeda affiliates, have been increasingly active in recent months, attacking army posts beyond their usual strongholds in the north.

The son of Etienne Tshisekedi, the Democratic Republic of Congo's late opposition leader, has been chosen as his father's successor.

Felix Tshisekedi, 53, will now lead the opposition coalition in crucial negotiations over the departure of President Joseph Kabila from office.

Rival armed factions are fighting for control over crucial oil terminals in the east of Libya.

The forces of military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who have controlled the "oil crescent" since September, lost ground, their spokesman says.

He said they had carried out air strikes against a faction known as the Benghazi Defence Brigade (BDB), after it launched an attack on Friday.

With frequent suicide bombings and assaults on Somalia's hotels and military targets, the armed group al-Shabab continues to threaten stability in the war-ravaged country.

The emergence of fighters pledging allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group can only make things worse.

Up to 25 people attempting to cross the Mediterranean are feared dead following a search operation off the coast of Libya that ended with the rescue of 115 others, according to local authorities.

Libya's coastguard said the victims' rubber boat sank around 3am (05:00 GMT) on Friday, some five kilometres off Tajoura, just east of the Libyan capital of Tripoli, because it was overloaded and taking on water.

Somalia's new leader has declared a national disaster for a prolonged drought that has forced about half of the country's population to seek urgent food assistance and sparked fears of a potential famine.

At least five people were killed in Guinea when security forces cracked down on students who were demonstrating for an end to teachers’ strikes that have kept them out of class, BBC Afrique reports.