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Burned bodies of Easter pilgrims still lie inside a bus that crashed off a bridge in South Africa

MMAMATLAKALA, South Africa (AP) — Emergency workers in South Africa were searching Friday for the bodies of victims after a bus carrying pilgrims to an Easter gathering plunged off a bridge and caught fire. An 8-year-old child was the only survivor of the crash that killed at least 45.

Hours after the Thursday afternoon crash, smoke seeped from the mangled, burned wreck underneath the concrete bridge. Authorities said it appeared that the driver lost control and the bus ploughed into the barriers along the side of the bridge and then over the edge. The driver was among the dead.

The crash happened in a mountainous region near the town of Mokopane, which is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the South African capital, Pretoria.

The Limpopo provincial government said the bus, which was carrying pilgrims from Botswana, veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge and plunged 50 meters (164 feet) into a ravine.

It said many bodies were burned beyond recognition and trapped inside the vehicle, while other victims had been thrown from the bus.

“We were at the scene,” said local resident Simone Mayema, who said he was one of the first to arrive. “We tried to help (but) there was nothing we could do because there was flames.”

Forensic investigators worked through the wreckage early Friday, but while some bodies had been recovered, others were believed to be still inside what was left of the bus, which was almost crushed flat.

There was no new information on the status of the child who somehow survived the horrific crash. Officials at the hospital where the child was taken declined to give an update. Government officials were expected to hold a press conference later Friday.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the victims appeared to be all from Botswana and had been on their way to the town of Moria in Limpopo for a popular Easter weekend pilgrimage that attracts hundreds of thousands of worshippers from South Africa and neighboring countries who follow the Zion Christian Church.

Ramaphosa had phoned Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi to offer his condolences and said the South African government would do all it can to help, according to a statement from Ramaphosa’s office.

Provincial authorities said the bus had a Botswana license plate.

South African Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga was in Limpopo province for a road safety campaign and changed her plans in order to visit the crash scene on Thursday after hearing the “devastating news,” the national Department of Transport said. Chikunga said there was an investigation underway into the cause of the crash and offered her condolences to the families of the victims.

The South African government often warns motorists to be cautious during the Easter holidays, which is a particularly busy and dangerous time for road travel as millions of South Africans travel from cities back to their rural family homes or make religious trips.

Foreigners also make long road journeys back to their neighboring home countries as Easter Friday and Easter Monday are both national holidays, giving people four days off.

More than 200 people died in road crashes during the Easter weekend last year. Just a day before this crash, the South African government called on people to be extra careful on Thursday and Friday because of the expected high volumes traveling by road, including around Moria.

The Zion Christian Church has its headquarters in Moria and this year is the first time its Easter pilgrimage has been set to go ahead since the COVID-19 pandemic. The pilgrimage is renowned as the church’s faithful pour into the small town from across the southern African region.

The worshippers gather near where a giant star — the church’s emblem — and the words “Zion City Moria” are painted in white on a hillside.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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8-year-old is the only survivor after bus plunges off cliff in South Africa, killing 45 people

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.

The only survivor of the crash was an 8-year-old child, who was receiving medical attention, according to authorities in the northern province of Limpopo.

The Limpopo provincial government said the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge and plunged 164 feet into a ravine before busting into flames.

Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and still trapped inside the vehicle.

Authorities said they believe the bus was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage.

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Bus in South Africa plunges off bridge and catches fire, killing 45 people

A bus in South Africa plunged off a bridge and fell more than 150 feet Thursday, killing 45 people, officials said. Only one passenger, an 8-year-old girl, survived the crash.

The bus was traveling from Botswana to an annual Easter festival at a church in Moria, in South Africa’s northern province of Limpopo.

The driver of the bus reportedly lost control while driving over the bridge, colliding with barriers before falling about 50 meters onto a rocky surface, Limpopo’s Department of Transport and Community Safety said.

Rescue workers at the scene of the bus crash Mamatlakala, South Africa, on March 28, 2024.

Limpopo Department of Transport and Community Safety

Rescue operations continued late Thursday. Some bodies were burned beyond recognition, while others were trapped inside the vehicle’s debris, the department said.

A department spokesperson told CBS News that the 8-year-old survivor is a girl. She was being treated at a nearby hospital, though the department did not provide further details about her condition.

Rescue workers told local media that the bus was pulling a trailer, adding additional weight to the vehicle as it crossed the bridge.

“I am sending my heartfelt condolences to the families affected by the tragic bus crash near Mamatlakala,” Sindisiwe Chikunga, South Africa’s Minister of Transport, said at the crash scene. “We continue to urge responsible driving at all times with heightened alertness as more people are on our roads this Easter weekend.”

—Sarah Carter contributed reporting.

S. Dev

S. Dev is a news editor for CBSNews.com.

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A bus plunges off a bridge in South Africa, killing 45 people. 8-year-old child is only survivor

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.

The only survivor of the crash was an 8-year-old child, who was receiving medical attention, according to authorities in the northern province of Limpopo.

The Limpopo provincial government said the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge and plunged 50 meters (164 feet) into a ravine before busting into flames.

Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and still trapped inside the vehicle.

Authorities said they believe the bus was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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How the Russia-Ukraine conflict has spread to Africa

As the stalemate between Russia and Ukraine continues, the war is changing life not only in Europe but also in countries across Africa.

Russia has claimed “growing influence” in Africa in recent years, said Gavin Mortimer in The Spectator, but more recently it has “become evident” that Moscow is “creating chaos in the continent as part of a calculated strategy to destabilise Europe”. In particular, Vladimir Putin has sought to extend his reach in western and central Africa, and to gain access to the region’s resources.

Ukraine has also looked to “strengthen its alliances” in Africa, to counter the growing Russian influence, said Alexis Akwagyiram on Semafor. Volodymr Zelenskyy will make his first state visit to the continent over the coming months, and Ukraine plans to double the number of its embassies there.

Why is Africa so important?

The desire to gain influence in Africa shows a “growing appreciation of the role played by the continent in geopolitical affairs”, said Akwagyiram. The “value of African alliances” – and Russia’s traction on the continent – was underscored when 17 of the 54 African countries in the United Nations abstained from a 2022 vote condemning Russia’s invasion. That “made it clear that international condemnation of Moscow was not universal”.

Russia can exploit instability in Africa to “trigger further political destabilisation” among its Western enemies, particularly with increases in mass illegal migration from the continent, said CNBC. Moscow also views African nations as a gateway to accessing “strategically important natural resources”.

What are Russia and Ukraine doing?

Russia’s modus operandi has so far been to “prop up shaky regimes with weapons and disinformation in exchange for diamonds and gold” via its Wagner Group mercenary force, now rebranded as Africa Corps, said Lisa Klaassen at The New Statesman.

Countries in western and central Africa have been “neglected” by the West, and Russia has ostensibly been “walking through doors left wide open by former colonial powers”, including in the Central African Republic, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan, where anti-European feeling is stoked by propaganda.

The influence of Russia has been felt pertinently in Sudan, where a bloody civil war continues to rage, with reports of Russian Wagner mercenaries aligned with rebel forces. Ukraine appears to have since aligned itself with government forces in Sudan, to try to “strike at Russian interests far beyond the Ukraine war’s frontlines”, said The Guardian.

Both Russia and Ukraine have attempted to win over governments with deliveries of grain and humanitarian aid, and Ukraine is expanding its shipment programme to “counter the impression that Russia is the only side in the conflict trying to address the impact on Africans”, said Akwagyiram.

Both countries have also “sought to recruit fighters” from Africa, said Military Africa. Many young Africans “facing bleak economic prospects at home” are drawn in by the “promise of high pay and even Ukrainian citizenship after the war”, while “estimates suggest thousands” of Africans have been recruited for Russia, potentially through the Wagner Group.

What next?

There is a growing feeling that Russia “appears to be winning the hearts and minds of Africans”, said Mortimer.

But while Russia may be succeeding in attracting alliances with other authoritarian regimes, Ukraine can find fertile ground in appealing “directly to Africans on issues which Moscow cannot reach”, wrote Ray Hartley and Greg Mills in the Kyiv Independent. Democracy is the “strongest selling point” among young Africans, and for Ukraine to lose the war would have “strategic implications for the democratic world” that would be “both profound and negative”.

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South Africa Has Many of World’s Worst Air Pollution Sites, Study Says

(Bloomberg) — South Africa is home to many of the world’s worst emission sites for toxic nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide and most of those are operated by the nation’s state power utility, according to Greenpeace.

Jacob Zuma barred from running in South Africa elections

Former President Jacob Zuma has been barred from running in South Africa’s general election in May.

The country’s electoral commission has not given a reason.

However, his 2021 conviction, and jailing, for contempt of court would appear to disqualify him.

His backing of the new uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party has been seen as a possible threat to the governing African National Congress (ANC), which has suspended Mr Zuma.

He served as president from 2009 to 2018.

His was the first name on the MK’s candidate list, but the electoral commission received objections to him potentially becoming a member of the National Assembly.

“In the case of former President Zuma, yes, we did receive an objection, which has been upheld,” said electoral commission head Mosotho Moepya on Thursday.

“The party that has nominated him has been informed,” Mr Moepya told journalists.

Mr Zuma has until 2 April to appeal against the decision.

The former president received a 15-month prison sentence in 2021 for contempt of court and the constitution says anyone who has had a prison sentence of longer than 12 months is not eligible to run for election.

The IEC said that the ruling did not prevent the MK party from taking part in the 29 May poll, News24 reports.

For the first time since the start of the democratic era in 1994, the ANC’s vote share could fall below 50%, according to several opinion polls. The MK party is seen as popular in Mr Zuma’s home region of KwaZulu-Natal.

More about South Africa’s election:

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Former Poundland owner’s ex-boss dies of gunshot wound in South Africa

Markus Jooste, the former head of the Steinhoff retail group that was at the centre of a huge corporate fraud case in South Africa, has died.

Police said Mr Jooste succumbed to a gunshot wound in hospital, with local media reporting he shot himself at his home in the southern town of Hermanus.

“The circumstances surrounding his death are being investigated,” police spokesperson Andre Traut said.

The Steinhoff group had included European retailers such as the UK’s Poundland.

Local media says Mr Jooste once had a “near-mythical” reputation as an exceptional businessman, credited with turning the small Johannesburg furniture-seller Steinhoff into a multinational retailer.

News of the 63-year-old’s death came a day after he was ordered to pay a $25m (£20m) fine – said to be the biggest in South Africa’s history.

On Friday, police said he had been notified that an arrest warrant had been issued against him shortly before he died.

The country’s financial regulator said Mr Jooste had played a role in the publishing of misleading financial statements about Steinhoff International Holdings.

Fake transactions worth $6.5bn were made by Steinhoff executives in order to inflate profits, an audit by PwC found.

Close to 98% of Steinhoff’s share value was wiped out in 2017, when the accounting scandal first broke. Those heavy losses also affected investors in South African pension funds.

Mr Jooste resigned as chief executive, but denied any knowledge of accounting fraud. He was also later fined for insider trading in 2020.

Steinhoff International Holdings is based in South Africa but also listed in Germany’s financial capital of Frankfurt.

After Mr Jooste’s no-show at a trial in Germany last April, a German court issued a warrant for his arrest in June.

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Cornish man dances non-stop to Toto’s Africa for 24-hours

A man has been undertaking a 24-hour danceathon in a bid to raise money for charity.

Dean Pascoe began dancing to Africa by Toto at 16:00 GMT on Friday at Beacon Cricket Club.

It is the third consecutive year Mr Pascoe, from Camborne, has endeavoured to complete the challenge in an effort to raise funds for CPR Foodbank.

“People think I’m mad for it but it leads to more donations so it’s fantastic in that respect,” he said.

Mr Pascoe said he came up with the idea after losing his job in 2019.

Listen: Camborne man channels 80’s hits for challenge

He said he went through “a bit of a struggle financially” and now wanted to “give something back”.

He said it is the third and final year he will carry out the danceathon to Africa by Toto – a song he has “always loved”.

“I thought if I continue doing it with the same song it makes it funnier and it also makes it more torturous I think,” Mr Pascoe said.

He said he spends the majority of the challenge “dad dancing”.

“I’ve got to keep stamina, it’s a long time – especially through the night,” he said.

Mr Pascoe’s challenge has raised more than £5,000.

The danceathon will finish at 16:00 GMT on Saturday.

Follow BBC Cornwall on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.

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41 reportedly dead after migrant boat capsizes off Italian island

Forty-one people have died after a migrant boat capsized in the Mediterranean last week, survivors told local Italian media on Wednesday.

Four survivors who reached the Italian island of Lampedusa told rescuers that they were on a boat carrying forty-five people, including three children, the Ansa news agency reported.

Migration Italy — Rescuers recover a body after a migrant boat broke apart in rough seas, at a beach near Cutro, southern Italy, Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023.

Giuseppe Pipita / AP

The boat initially set off on Thursday from the city of Sfax in Tunisia — a notorious hotbed for migrant smuggling — but the boat turned over and sank within a few hours of departure, Ansa reported, citing accounts from the survivors.

The survivors consisted of three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea who said they had initially been rescued by a cargo ship, before being transferred onto an Italian coast guard ship.

Questions remain regarding whether these survivor accounts are connected to two shipwrecks that occurred on Sunday, with the Italian Coast Guard saying around 30 people were missing from one wreck.

Refugees in Libya, a non-governmental organization that works to ensure the safe arrival of refugees, said in a social media post Sunday that the Italian coastguard had recovered 57 survivors and two bodies in that particular incident.

In another operation, 34 migrants were airlifted by helicopter by Italy’s emergency mountain rescue service on Sunday after being stranded on a cliff in Lampedusa — located in the Sicily region in southern Italy — and geographically closer to Tunisia than it is to the Italian mainland.

Government data from Italy’s Interior ministry shows that around 93,700 migrants arrived to Italy by sea this year, with the most prominent nationalities of migrants being from Guinea and the Ivory Coast.

APTOPIX Europe Migrants — A man waves as he disembarks from the Open Arms rescue ship on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019.

Salvatore Cavalli / AP

Separately, the Tunisian Coast Guard in Sfax said on Monday that they rescued two people and recovered 11 bodies of migrants whose boat had capsized in Tunisian waters.

The boat was carrying a total of 57 people from sub-Saharan African countries and 44 other passengers were still missing, Tunisian authorities told state television on Monday.

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