DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal is kicking off the Youth Olympic Games on Saturday, bringing an Olympic event to Africa for the first time as the continent seeks a bigger role in international sporting competitions.
About 2,700 young athletes aged 14 to 17 will compete through Nov. 13 in the capital, Dakar, the nearby city of Diamniadio and the beach resort of Saly.
Click to Gallery
A view of the coast of Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Chinedu Asadu) Photo taken with a smartphone.
International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry draws on the wall as she visits the Youth Olympic Village in Diamniadio, Senegal, Oct. 29, 2026. (Misper Apawu/Pool Photo via AP)
IOC President Kirsty Coventry, rear red shirt, visits the Youth Olympic Village in Diamniadio near Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026 (Misper Apawu/Pool Photo via AP)
Players from Japan train at Iba Mar Diop Stadium, one of the olympic venues, ahead of the Youth Olympics Games in Dakar, Senegal, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)
Hundreds of dancers will join a spectacle celebrating Senegalese and African culture, in line with the Fames motto “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates.”
“This is a first opportunity for Senegal and, by extension, for Africa, to discover new sports," Thomas Dieme, a Senegalese student said as Dakar prepared to host the games. "It is only natural that we should all be happy to welcome other people, other cultures,” he added.
Among the celebrities expected at Saturday's opening ceremony is French actor Omar Sy, who has Senegalese roots and stars in the Netflix series “Lupin,” as well as Senegalese Italian TikTok star Khaby Lame, both ambassadors for the games.
The mascot, Ayo, is a young lion wearing a traditional Fulani hat. Its name means “joy” in Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria and neighboring West African countries.
President Bassirou Diomaye Faye is scheduled to declare the games open at 6:30 p.m. local time (0830 GMT) at the Diamniadio stadium where International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry and some heads of state are expected to be present.
The Youth Olympics are a smaller competition than the Summer Olympics. Singapore hosted the first summer edition in 2010. Dakar was initially due to host in 2022, but the coronavirus pandemic delayed the games by four years.
Athletes will compete in 153 medal events across 25 sports, including athletics, swimming and 3-x-3 basketball.
Several sports will make their Youth Olympic debuts. They include Baseball5, a five-on-five version of baseball played without bats and gloves, Wushu, a Chinese martial art, that can be choreography-based or combat sport, and coastal rowing beach sprint, which combines beach runs with a head-to-head rowing race.
Beach wrestling will also feature at the Youth Olympics for the first time, a nod to Senegalese wrestling, the country’s national sport also performed on sand.
The first refugee team at a Youth Olympics will field six athletes based in Kenya and Uganda in track and field, judo and taekwondo.
The games arrive 130 years after the modern Olympics began in Athens. Coventry, a Zimbabwean swimming champion, became the IOC’s first African and first female president last year.
“It is time for Africa, time for Senegal,” Coventry told media upon arriving in Senegal on Tuesday.
South Africa hosted the continent’s first soccer FIFA World Cup in 2010. Morocco will co-host the 2030 tournament with Spain and Portugal. Rwanda hosted Africa’s first road cycling world championships last year and Formula 1 is returning to Africa with a grand prix in Rwanda starting early next decade. Botswana also staged the World Athletics Relays in May.
African countries increasingly see sport as “a weapon in diplomacy and a tool for development,” Dakar-based sports analyst Frédéric Sohoundé said.
He pointed to Morocco’s investment in sports facilities and its ability to attract repeated competitions. Senegal, though, needs reliable maintenance funding and regular events after the games to prevent its venues from becoming expensive, unused facilities, he said.
Russia’s delegation of 13 athletes is competing under its national flag for the first time at an Olympic event since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to its suspension. Russians at the Paris Olympics of 2024 and this year’s Winter Olympics competed as neutral athletes without national symbols.
That follows a shift in the IOC’s approach under Coventry, who has said the Olympics shouldn’t “hold athletes accountable for the actions of their governments.”
It could be a trial run for a full Russian return at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
The games come as Senegal grapples with a debt crisis and public frustration over living costs.
Billions of dollars of unreported debt by the previous administration have left Senegalese authorities with little money for public spending, while layoffs and rising living costs have fueled protests in recent months.
Many Senegalese said in interviews that they're prioritizing making ends meet over attending the sporting activities.
A government-led foundation drew criticism after announcing a contribution of 500 million CFA francs (about $854,000) to buy 200,000 tickets for school children. Critics questioned the money’s source, which the president’s political movement said was from donors and benefactors.
President Faye has defended spending on the games, citing renovated sports facilities, training for young people and contracts for Senegalese businesses.
See AP’s full sports coverage here
See full AP coverage of African sports here
A view of the coast of Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Chinedu Asadu) Photo taken with a smartphone.
International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry draws on the wall as she visits the Youth Olympic Village in Diamniadio, Senegal, Oct. 29, 2026. (Misper Apawu/Pool Photo via AP)
IOC President Kirsty Coventry, rear red shirt, visits the Youth Olympic Village in Diamniadio near Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026 (Misper Apawu/Pool Photo via AP)
Players from Japan train at Iba Mar Diop Stadium, one of the olympic venues, ahead of the Youth Olympics Games in Dakar, Senegal, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)
CHERNIHIV REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Residents evacuated from the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky have crossed into Ukrainian-held territory after a humanitarian mission and localized ceasefire.
The residents traveled by bus and plane through Russia and Belarus, following a deal brokered by U.S. first lady Melania Trump.
The crossing took place under restrictions imposed by Ukrainian authorities that did not permit the disclosure of the number of evacuees or the location of the border crossing.
Ukrainian organizers said the restrictions were imposed in part to safeguard residents who chose to remain in Oleshky as well as to protect the safety of similar humanitarian missions that may occur.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back for updates. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Evacuees from Russian-occupied Oleshky in Ukraine arrived in Belarus on Saturday on their way back to Ukraine, part of a major rescue operation carried out under the most significant truce since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine 4½ years ago.
The ceasefire in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which the White House says was brokered with help from U.S. first lady Melania Trump, began at 3 a.m. Tuesday and is expected to continue through Sunday evening.
It was a rare joint Russia-Ukraine humanitarian effort, a brief respite in the grim war.
Civilians from Oleshky, on the Dnipro River, began the long journey out of the war-ravaged region in bus convoys on Friday. The estimated 2,000 remaining residents were offered the choice of traveling to Ukrainian- or Russian-held territory, or remaining in the city with replenished food and medical supplies.
Russia's Ministry of Defense said those who chose to travel from Oleshky to Ukrainian-held territory were taken to the Russian city of Anapa and flown to the Belarusian city of Homel. They were accompanied by Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s commissioner for human rights, it said.
“We will be home soon!” said a video post from Lubinets at Homel airport.
Four planes with the evacuees landed in Belarus and the passengers would be on Ukrainian territory “within hours,” said Ukrainian lawmaker Davyd Arakhamia.
Relatives waited on Saturday at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, along with aid tents, coffee stands and even provisions to feed the pets the evacuees were bringing with them. Volunteers from organizations, including the Red Cross, Doctors without Borders and the World Central Kitchen, were also there.
Liza Paliy, 19, who last saw her father over 2½ years ago when she, her mother and sister fled from the occupied territory while he stayed behind, was among those waiting.
“We thought at that time that it would be a month, two maximum, and we would return, but unfortunately, two years have already passed," she said.
Daria Pavlyn also waited at the border in hopes of reuniting with her father, Mykhailo, whom she had not heard from in about a month.
He had planned to flee occupied territory with his family after a nearby strike killed two neighbors but stayed behind when arrangements to care for the family’s home and animals fell through.
“We realized that, well, there was no (other) way, and he walked us to the road and that was it — that was the last time” they saw him, Pavlyn said.
She said that since then, he had feared making the arduous journey out, particularly without Russian documents.
Russia’s ombudswoman and lead representative on the mission, Yana Lantratova, said buses also transported Oleshky residents who wanted to live in Russia. Russian media outlets on Saturday showed civilians arriving at a temporary accommodation site in Simferopol on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Russia and Ukraine have not specified how many people chose to leave the city, but the U.S. first lady posted on social media Friday that the humanitarian convoy could safely evacuate more than 750 people.
Apart from Melania Trump, Pope Leo XIV — the first American pontiff — also pressed Russian and Ukrainian leaders to allow aid deliveries and civilian evacuations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday welcomed U.S. approval of Ukraine’s purchase of 500 PAC-3 Patriot interceptors but urged partners to supply the weapons from existing stocks to protect the country this winter, warning the newly authorized U.S. sale could take years to deliver.
“Right now, the Russians are attacking our energy infrastructure every single day. In just these past two weeks of October, there have already been more than 30 Russian strikes on critical parts of our power grid,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The Trump administration said Friday that it had approved a proposed $2.1 billion sale of Patriot air defense interceptors, after Kyiv had accused the Pentagon of delaying deliveries of the vital munition needed to stop Russian ballistic missiles.
The U.S. State Department said 500 Patriot missiles would be purchased for Ukraine with donations from Canada, Germany and Norway through a U.S. program and that no American funds were involved.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone attack killed a 30-year-old woman and a 41-year-old man in Russia’s western Bryansk region, local Gov. Yegor Kovalchuk said Saturday. Another five people were wounded, he said.
Local officials also reported Ukrainian drone attacks in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan. Russian media outlets said there was a fire in the region’s capital, Ufa, home to several oil refineries.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Saturday its forces had shot down 433 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Zelenskyy said Moscow launched drone attacks on energy and railway infrastructure across Ukraine overnight, leaving 280,000 households in Dnipro and Kyiv regions without power.
The attacks targeted combined heat and power plants in Kyiv and Sumy regions, four electricity substations and a gas distribution facility in the Dnipro region and railway infrastructure in Dnipro and Kharkiv, he said, adding that repair crews were working to restore power.
Zelenskyy urged partners to impose further sanctions on Russia and provide new support packages to Ukraine.
“The world sees Russia targeting civilian infrastructure every day. Everyone who does not want to see this Russian escalation spread further into Europe must help Ukraine,” he said in an online post.
Associated Press writer Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this screenshot from a video provided by the Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine, Ukraine's Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, left, speaks with residents of Oleshky during their evacuation to a safe area amid a local ceasefire connected to a humanitarian aid mission in Oleshky, Kherson region, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026. (Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine via AP)
In this photo provided by the Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine, Ukraine's Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, center right, and Russian Ombudsman Yana Lantratova speak with journalists before departing for Oleshky to evacuate local residents to a safe area during a local ceasefire linked to a humanitarian mission in Ukraine's Kherson region, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026. (Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine via AP) CORRECTION: change position of Dmytro Lubinets from center left to center right
