All Protocol Observed. Welcome to Issue 212 of The Continent. We join more than 250 newsrooms in 70 countries blacking out front pages in solidarity with journalists in Gaza. Read Ansam al-Kitaa’s despatch from Gaza City: https://bit.ly/212_TC

From the beginning of the new school year, pregnant girls will no longer be excluded from school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All schools except Catholic ones, if men of the cloth have their way.

What would Jesus do?

Catholic schools defy the Democratic Republic of the Congo's ruling on pregnant pupils’ rights to an education, citing ‘morality’ and ‘disc...

The Sahrawi people living in the Tindouf camps of southwest Algeria are facing their worst nutrition crisis since 2010. The Almasar Library Centre in Smara camp started a seed bank, giving families seedlings and training them to create home gardens.

Some food for thought, and little else

As Sahrawi hunger grows and their cause shrinks, a library tries to lend more than books.

Andabluesian: An elder descends through the distinctive alleys of the Medina of the northwestern Moroccan city of Chefchaouen, where the blue hues of its buildings are complemented by ornate mosaics. Photo: Abdel Majid Bziouat/AFP

The ylang-ylang trade sustains about 10,000 producers in Comoros, which is significant in a country with a population of less than a million. But it also drives deforestation.

The fading forests of sensual ylang-ylang

The ylang-ylang trade sustains about 10,000 producers in Comoros, which is significant in a country with a population of less than a million. But i...

The war in Sudan is often reduced to numbers – 12-million people displaced – or shorthand – “two generals fighting for power”. Then there are the labels – “forgotten”, “nihilistic”, and “war about nothing”. This framing oversimplifies the actors at its centre and erases the people in its path. In North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher , residents who are organising to survive an ongoing 14-month RSF siege defy such flattening.

Sudan: Us vs them – in a good way

‘Stay with Gisma’ is one woman’s attempt to alleviate famine.

We asked Sudanese people to explain what the war is about. What emerges is clear: there is no such thing as a war about nothing.

Is the Sudan war really ‘about nothing’?

There's no such thing as a war about nothing. And Sudan's war is about everything

The who, why, and means of the Sudan war.

Foreign interests drive local dynamics

The who, why, and means of the Sudan war.

Golden age: Faid Kassime (centre), accompanies a gold dowry to his wife’s family home in Moroni, Comoros – as part of Grand Mariage rites held years after an initial Petit Mariage seals a couple’s union. Photo: Marco Longari/AFP