ADF

ADF STAFF In the weeks after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, satellite images told the story of a reeling Russian military withdrawing from its once-prized Mediterranean bases. Two Antonov AN-124 cargo planes with their nose cones open prepared to load, as dozens of vehicles lined up on the tarmac at Khmeimim air base, which served as Russia’s Syrian air bridge to Africa for many years. Daily air traffic from Syria to Libya increased significantly, as Russian and ousted Syrian officials scrambled to find refuge for now-homeless Russian naval vessels. In southern Libya, satellite photos show Russian mercenaries building…

ADF STAFF Even as terrorism cases have declined in East Africa in recent years, the region is experiencing a renewed growth in piracy and increasing attacks by cybercriminals. “These are threats that have disrupted lives, weakened economies and tested the resilience of our nations,” Workneh Gebeyehu, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), recently told members as they launched the organization’s project to counter transnational crime in Kenya. IGAD is pushing for a regional approach to rein in crime that crosses national borders and affects millions of people across the region. The aim of the Regional Cooperation and…

ADF STAFF Human rights advocates say fighters with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) murdered hundreds of civilians in al-Gezira State in revenge for the defection of a senior RSF commander in that region. RSF fighters attacked the community of al-Sireha in October after the defection of Abu Aqla Keikal, a former Army officer who joined the RSF after the conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) broke out in April 2023. In a video posted to social media in October 2024, RSF fighters showed nearly 70 people, some with bloody clothing, being held at an intersection in the small agricultural…

ADF STAFF James was riding his motorcycle through northwest Burkina Faso on his way to Senegal when armed extremists abducted, blindfolded and took him back to their camp. After insisting he was not a spy and surviving the terrorist camp commander’s interrogation, a horde of fighters returned from an attack and fired their guns into the air. James, terrified, did not realize the gunfire was celebratory. “I thought that was the end. I was just sweating,” he said, recounting his 2019 experience for the first time in a December 2024 interview with the BBC, which gave him a pseudonym for…

ADF STAFF A pair of major 2024 attacks against Malian security forces and Russian mercenaries has some Bamako residents on edge. The sentiment in Mali’s capital is a departure from previous public displays of support for the ruling military junta led by Col. Assimi Goïta before the attacks and suggests that ongoing acceptance of the military might depend on its ability to provide security. That is according to Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director and senior fellow of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) Africa Program, and Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow with the program. The researchers produced a report…

ADF STAFF Hania was living in Fayu in Sudan’s South Kordofan State when fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) arrived in the community. Three months pregnant at the time, Hania was abducted with other women and young girls and taken to a camp where they were imprisoned with 30 other women from the region. “They made a corral, like for animals, with wires and sticks,” Hania, 18, told Human Rights Watch (HRW). “Then they put us in chains. Ten girls to one set of chains.” Like other Nuba women interviewed by HRW, Hania was held as a sex slave.…

ADF STAFF A young farmer wielded a hoe under the unrelenting sun in the northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri province. A Soldier with the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) stood nearby, protecting him. Along a dirt road, MONUSCO peacekeepers accompanied women and children who carried baskets of produce. Surrounding agricultural fields, blue helmets with rifles were poised to thwart any threats to the workers. For years, the region has been plagued by conflict between rebel groups, self-defense forces and other militias. The M23 terror group in particular is active in…

ADF STAFF The splintered Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) continues to bicker over many issues amid swirling security crises in Ethiopia’s northern region. Two years after a peace deal was signed to end a civil war, armed groups continue to operate in Tigray, while human trafficking and illegal gold mining networks further destabilize the area. Debretsion Gebremichael, who leads one faction, announced in late December 2024 that his side was launching a “peaceful struggle” during a meeting with senior leaders in Mekelle, but he did not elaborate on what that means. The announcement was made amid allegations from a TPLF…

ADF STAFF Clashes between civilian prime ministers and military junta leaders in the Sahel are highlighting the unsteady nature of military-led governments in a region where terror attacks are multiplying. On December 6, Capt. Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso removed Prime Minister Apollinaire Kelem de Tambela, whom he had appointed to the position two years earlier. Traore also dissolved the government. The move came as Burkina Faso faces a deteriorating security situation with 13,500 people killed by extremist violence since the military took power in a coup in 2022. Armed groups now control more than half of the country. In…

ADF STAFF Authorities in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s South Kivu province arrested 17 Chinese men in mid-December after making an unannounced visit to a gold mine in the village of Karhembo. About 60 Chinese nationals were at the mine, and officials detained those who appeared to be in charge. “We asked them to present us with the company’s documents,” Bernard Muhindo, South Kivu’s finance minister and acting mines minister, told Reuters. “There were no documents, zero. No certificate, no status, no national identification, nothing.” Less than a week later, 14 of the men were released and headed…