Gabon braced for new protests on Sunday, the day after three people were killed in a demonstration against President Ali Bongo Ondimba, according to the opposition.

Many more were injured in the violence on Saturday, an opposition coalition said in a statement late Saturday.

The U.N.'s special representative for central Africa on Thursday called on increased international support in the struggle against Boko Haram, with thousands of Nigerians having fled and cross-border attacks on the rise.

"Deadly attacks by Boko Haram have gone beyond Nigeria's borders and now constitute a threat for neighbouring countries," Abdoulaye Bathily told reporters in the Gabon capital Libreville.

Some in Gabon believe the bitter iboga root comes from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Others elsewhere have derided it as a dangerous drug.

Today a growing number of Westerners are travelling to the central African country to sample it themselves as part of an ancestral rite called Bwiti, one of Gabon's official religions.

Gabon's President Ali Bongo Ondimba on Friday named a new prime minister, Daniel Ona Ondo, following municipal and regional elections, a presidential spokesman said.

"The president of the republic has named by decree Mr Daniel Ona Ondo to the post of prime minister and head of government," Bongo's secretary-general Etienne Massard Kabinda Makaga told journalists.

Health officials in the African nation of Gabon say at least 150 people have been sickened by a mosquito-borne illness.

Gabon's Health Minister Marie Josee Ndombi announced Wednesday night in a statement on national television that the patients had been hospitalized with suspected cases of chikungunya fever.

Gabon's main opposition leader Andre Mba Obame arrived in Libreville Saturday after 14 months in France, saying the International Criminal Court would look into a 2009 "massacre" at Port-Gentil.

Obame, leader of the now outlawed National Union (U.N.) party who claimed to have won the last presidential election, was greeted by up to 3,000 supporters on his return after his long absence for "health reasons".

The search for the world's first malaria vaccine received a boost with the release of early results from a major clinical trial showing it cut risk by about half in African children.

The vaccine known as RTS,S is made by the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline's lab in Belgium, and is the first of its kind to attempt to block a parasite, rather than bacteria or viruses.