Today in Africa — October 5, 2026: NBA Africa to Build 55 Courts Honoring Dikembe Mutombo, 40 LGBT U.S. Deportees Land in African Countries Where Their Safety Is at Risk

The project supports NBA Africa's pledge to build or renovate 1,000 courts across the continent over the next decade, with Quest Water Global serving as the league's Official Infrastructure Development Partner in the DR Congo.

Mutombo's wife, Rose Mutombo, says she hopes the courts will inspire future generations to embrace values like discipline and teamwork, pursue education, and discover the opportunities the game can create.

NBA Africa CEO Clare Akamanzi says the deal will give young people in Mutombo's native country more chances to follow in his footsteps as players and leaders.

Mutombo was picked fourth overall in the 1991 NBA Draft, spent 18 years in the league, and was an eight-time All-Star and four-time Defensive Player of the Year. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.

Mutombo also built the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital in Kinshasa, named for his late mother, which opened in 2007.

More than 40,000 people have been deported to countries not their own since Trump returned to office, according to preliminary government data shared with Reuters, and about 900 went to African countries.

The 40 cases involve deportations to Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Eswatini, which criminalize same-sex acts, and to the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, and DR Congo, where the State Department has documented abuses against LGBT people, including "corrective rape" and conversion therapy.

After two weeks in a Sierra Leone hotel under police watch, Latifou was flown back to Togo with $100. A relative warned him he wasn't safe, and he fled via Benin to Côte d'Ivoire, where he works as a security guard and avoids the Togolese community.

A bisexual Ghanaian woman deported to Cameroon now rarely leaves a relative's house in northern Nigeria, where same-sex acts can bring lashes or death by stoning. A gay Ghanaian man has spent four months hiding in Togo's forests, and a 44-year-old Mauritanian man was held in an Eswatini prison before ending up in Senegal.

A federal judge ruled against the policy in February, but the Supreme Court stayed that ruling last week, allowing third-country deportations to continue. The court will hear arguments in December.

Egypt's foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, denied backing the TPLF, saying "we are not party to the domestic crisis facing Ethiopia," while Eritrea and Sudan also deny helping the rebels, claims Ethiopia has made against all three.

Abdelatty called Egypt's dispute with Ethiopia over its Nile dam "life or death for 110 million people," ahead of a Sunday meeting between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his Eritrean and Somali counterparts, with Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan also due to attend.

Ethiopia cut diplomatic ties with Eritrea last week, and analysts are watching closely as the military advances north toward the Eritrean border. Eritrea says it fears Ethiopia will seize its Assab port by force, while Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says he seeks peaceful sea access.

The U.S. State Department urged both countries to show restraint on Saturday, warning that a conflict would jeopardize U.S. cooperation with each.

In Mekelle, shops are reopening, and phone and internet service is returning after a week-long disruption, residents said.