Central and west African leaders will hold a summit next week to fine tune their campaign to crush Boko Haram, who appear to be losing ground in the face of a regional military offensive.

The April 8 talks will be the first since Nigeria's election a week ago which was won by Muhammadu Buhari, a former military leader who has vowed to rid his country of the "terror" the Islamist militants have sown.

Turkish lawmakers approved Thursday sending troops on a year-long mission with EU forces in the Central African Republic and Mali as Turkey continues efforts to bolster its presence in the region.

The motion passed easily with support from the ruling party and the main opposition, although the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) voted against it, the private Dogan news agency reported.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi landed in Islamist neighbor Sudan on Friday for what an analyst said would be an attempt to shore up a regional alliance against Islamic "terrorism".

An AFP photographer at Khartoum airport confirmed the Egyptian leader's plane had touched down.

Nigeria's secret police on Friday said they had rescued three Indians who were kidnapped from a cargo ship off the coast of Equatorial Guinea.

The three were seized on board the MV San Miguel on January 3 and taken to the Bonny Channel area of the oil-producing Rivers state, in southern Nigeria.

Equatorial Guinea's interior ministry issued a series of recommendations to ensure that Friday's independence day is celebrated in style, banning revellers from wearing flip-flops in the president's native village.

"To ensure the smooth running of the October 12 national holiday, 44th anniversary of our independence, using mobile phones, wearing cropped trousers and flip-flops, carrying knives and drinking alcoholic beverages are banned," Interior Minister Engonga Nguema Onguene said in a statement read out on state radio Monday.

U.N. culture and science body UNESCO on Tuesday awarded a prize financed by the leader of Equatorial Guinea despite fierce criticism from rights groups who decried the move as "shameful".

Rights groups and Western nations have condemned the life sciences award, financed to the tune of $3 million (2.5 million euros) over five years, because of accusations that President Teodoro Obiang Nguema rules with an iron grip and heads a government festering with corruption.

Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi was elected the African Union Chairman Sunday, taking over the one-year post from Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, officials said.

"I want to congratulate the new chairman of the African Union... Boni Yayi," said Obiang, the outgoing chairman, speaking after the official announcement at the AU summit meeting in the Ethiopian capital.

Leaders of the world's biggest gas suppliers ended their first summit on Tuesday by reiterating the need for a fair gas price while Iran, whose president was absent, warned that Western taxation will derail the energy market.

The 12-member Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) expressed in a declaration they issued after the one-day summit "the need to reach a fair price for natural gas based on gas to oil ... prices indexation."