In Case You Missed It: 8/15/16 — 8/21/16

2016 Rio Olympics

Eli­ud Kip­choge of Kenya

This week’s most impor­tant head­lines out of and about Africa.

In this week’s news, Africa takes home the gold at the Olympics, an Olympian uses his win to protest vio­lence in his home coun­try, and John Ker­ry plans an Africa trip.

Ten Gold Medals Go to African Continent

The 2016 Olympics have con­clud­ed, and it’s time to look at the scores. Sev­er­al African nations com­pet­ed, bring­ing home a com­bined total of 44 medals for the con­ti­nent, 10 of which were gold.

Kenya won the most medals of any African nation: they won 13 medals, 6 of which were gold. South Africa came sec­ond with 10 medals, two of which were gold. Ethiopia was third with 8 medals, and 1 gold. The final gold medal was won by the Ivory Coast.

Run­ner Unable To Return Home After Olympic Win

While most Olympic par­tic­i­pants cel­e­brat­ed their win, Fey­isa Lile­sa of Ethiopia instead used his moment of glo­ry to draw atten­tion to injus­tices back home.  Lile­sa won the sil­ver medal in the men’s marathon, and as he crossed the fin­ish line, he raised his arms in a cross above his head.

The ges­ture is a sym­bol of the Oro­mo peo­ple of Ethiopia, a group to which Lile­sa belongs. He explained lat­er at a press con­fer­ence that the Oro­mo peo­ple have had their lands stolen and suf­fered oth­er injus­tices by the Ethiopi­an gov­ern­ment, lead­ing to protests in which the Oro­mo and oth­er pro­tes­tors are jailed or killed.

Lile­sa says that he will not be able to return to Ethiopia as a result of his dis­play. He may also lose his medal because the Inter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee pro­hibits any polit­i­cal dis­play by the even­t’s participants.

Ker­ry To Meet With African Leaders

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State John Ker­ry is trav­el­ing to Kenya and Nige­ria this week. Ker­ry will meet with lead­ers from eight African nations in order to dis­cuss how to sta­bi­lize South Sudan and Somalia.

Parts of cen­tral and east Africa have suf­fered vio­lence for decades as a result of the con­flicts in these coun­tries, includ­ing a civ­il war in South Sudan in 2013. Ker­ry will meet with offi­cials from Kenya, Ugan­da, South Sudan, Sudan, Dji­bouti, Tan­za­nia, Soma­lia and Ethiopia. He will be there to dis­cuss ways to imple­ment peace, pro­vide aid and cre­ate eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty in South Sudan, Soma­lia, and their neigh­bor­ing nations.