🇲🇺 Twenty children fall sick at school and parents want answers

Twenty children fall sick at school and parents want answers

Four ZEP schools are under formal investigation after around twenty pupils fell ill on Monday with vomiting and diarrhoea following a school lunch of bread, salad, and chicken. Richelieu Government School is among those affected. Sanitary inspectors moved fast, taking samples at the schools and at the restaurant that prepared the meals on Tuesday.

Both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education are running the probe. Lab results are still pending. One mother told TéléPlus: "We cannot send our children to school healthy in the morning, only to have to rush them to the hospital by the afternoon." No formal response from school management has been issued.

ZEP, or Zone d'Éducation Prioritaire, are schools in disadvantaged areas that receive extra state support. Which makes the catering failure cut deeper.

If lab results confirm contamination, the catering contract and its oversight will face hard questions.

Seven children in a state shelter tattooed with the same needle

An educator at a children's shelter in the north raised the alarm last Sunday after spotting tattoos on several pupils' hands. Seven minors had used a makeshift device and pen ink to mark their skin, all sharing the same needle. All seven were rushed to Northern Hospital and MediClinic Goodlands for blood tests, along with an eighth child as a precaution.

A police complaint for "causing harm to a child" was filed at Grand-Baie station. The needle has not been recovered. Children told police they acted voluntarily. Investigators still want to know how the equipment got in.

Supervision, or the lack of it, is now the central question.

Ally Royals stays behind bars as FCC corruption probe widens

Ally Moortooza Boolaky, 23, known online as Ally Royals, appeared at Flacq District Court on Wednesday and was refused bail. The FCC, Mauritius's anti-corruption body, said he could tamper with evidence. Bail hearing: 19 May.

Rs 75,000 allegedly changed hands to help Josian Deelawon get a CEB transformer. Deelawon is the man at whose home Rs 114 million in cash was found in 2025. A second transaction is now in investigators' sights.

Fifty-one people killed on Mauritius roads since January

Figures tabled in the National Assembly on Tuesday show 51 road fatalities since the start of 2026, per the Commissioner of Police. Roughly one death every three days.

Macron singles out Mauritius for backing a UN veto curb

At the Nairobi closing, Macron named Mauritius explicitly for backing a Franco-Mexican initiative to stop Security Council members using their veto during mass atrocities. Not a small thing for a small island state.

PM Ramgoolam separately proposed climate finance and a "trust architecture" to attract institutional capital to Africa.

Getting Macron's applause costs nothing. Whether it translates into anything bankable is the real test.

Shorts

21,000 homes cut by CEB for unpaid bills – More than 21,000 households disconnected by the CEB since the 15% tariff rise kicked in on 1 May.

Family challenges leniency of doctor's sanction – Nalini Biefun is at the Supreme Court contesting the doctor's penalty in her sister's death case as too lenient.

Bounties rising for missing foreign workers – Reward notices for runaway workers now appear almost daily online, sums climbing as employers grow more desperate.

Bank of Mauritius: beware fake emails – The Bank of Mauritius is warning the public about fraudulent emails and messages impersonating the central bank.

Mauritius Post to deliver Amazon orders – Mauritius Post confirmed a deal with Amazon to handle all local deliveries on the island.

4,000

foreign patients Mauritius aims to attract per year under a new medical tourism strategy announced in parliament by Tourism Minister Michael Sik Yuen.

$32 million

at the centre of an FBI probe that saw Ghanaian MP Kwame Frimpong detained at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, per Ghana's parliament.

$4.5 billion

allegedly siphoned from Malaysia's state fund 1MDB by fugitive Jho Low, who has now formally requested a pardon from President Trump.

Macron flies from Nairobi to Addis Ababa for AU and UN talks

A day after the Africa Forward summit closed, French President Macron was in Addis Ababa for a trilateral meeting at African Union headquarters with UN Secretary-General António Guterres and AU Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat.

The back-to-back push: Nairobi then Addis, in two days. Macron drew criticism at the summit after attendees described a sharp outburst during proceedings.

South Africa's suspended police chief faces court over irregular tender

Fannie Masemola, South Africa's suspended police commissioner, appeared before a Pretoria court on four charges under the Public Finance Management Act over an irregular tender.

Burkina Faso's junta suspends 247 more civil society groups

Burkina Faso's military rulers announced 247 more suspensions, bringing the total shut down since last month to over 900.

Israeli drones kill eight on Beirut highway, including a mother and her children

Israeli drone strikes hit multiple vehicles on a main highway south of Beirut on Wednesday, killing eight people including a woman and her two children, per Lebanon's Health Ministry. One of the deadliest single incidents since the ceasefire took effect. No immediate military justification was made public.

South Carolina court throws out Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions

The South Carolina Supreme Court overturned Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions and ordered a new trial, ruling the jury was improperly influenced during deliberations.

Prosecutors seek seven years for Sarkozy over Gaddafi campaign funds

French prosecutors asked an appeal court to sentence Nicolas Sarkozy to seven years in prison over his 2007 campaign allegedly receiving illegal funding from Gaddafi's Libya.

The last place on earth where bonobos can still be saved

At Kinshasa's Lola ya Bonobo, the only bonobo sanctuary on earth, caregiver Micheline Nzonzi rocks orphaned infants like toddlers. Not optional: without constant touch, traumatised babies shut down and die.

Bonobos share 99% of our DNA. Population: crashed from 100,000 in the 1980s to around 20,000 today. One baby every four to five years. They exist only in DRC.