2024

ADF STAFF Russia has added more armed men to its Sahel operations, this time in the form of the Bear Brigade, which has operated in Burkina Faso since May. Experts say the Bear Brigade is among an estimated 300 Russian security operatives…

ADF STAFF Cyberattackers are using a new, low-cost weapon to disrupt internet access to media sites across Africa — one that is difficult to defend against and rapidly proliferating. The method of attack, called a distributed…

ADF STAFF Three journalists critical of Burkina Faso’s military junta were kidnapped over a 10-day period in June. At least one of them, Serge Oulon, editor of the newspaper L’Événement, was abducted by a group of armed men…

ADF STAFF Across a continent where militias pose significant dangers, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan stands alone among the cautionary tales. Its leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, seized power alongside the…

ADF STAFF The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared its first public health emergency on August 13 as mpox, a virus commonly known as “monkeypox,” spread into several countries that never had reported cases. A…

ADF STAFF When the Sudanese Armed Forces retook a key neighborhood in the city of Omdurman from the Rapid Support Forces in March, soldiers discovered four passports belonging to residents of the United Arab Emirates, the RSF’s silent…

ADF STAFF In the decades after the Congo Wars of the 1990s, widespread armed conflict has touched the lives of nearly everyone in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Recent reports revealed the tangled morass of…

ADF STAFF Confusion reigned for days after flash floods and landslides killed at least 91 people in the central Kenya town of Mai Mahiu in April. Police initially blamed a burst dam, but the government later said debris had blocked a…

ADF STAFF Massive redwood trees tower above the floor of central Kenya’s Aberdare National Park, home to an array of animal species, including antelope, buffalo, elephants and endangered species such as black rhinos, mountain bongos,…

ADF STAFF Violent extremism from the Sahel has been spreading closer to Ghana’s northern border over the last five years. Mataru Mumuni Muqthar, executive director of the West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism (WACCE) in Accra, said…