ADF

International observers are accusing the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) of using banned chemical weapons against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) based, in part, on recent video evidence from a 2024 attack on a military base and oil refinery north of Khartoum. RSF fighters occupied the base in Garri and the nearby al-Jaili oil refinery at the time of the September 2024 battle with the SAF. At the time of the battle, the RSF had held the oil refinery since April 2023. The SAF recaptured it in January 2025. Video and images posted to social media about the time of…

A new diagnostic laboratory will help Sierra Leone strengthen its response to parasitic diseases that affect the country. Government authorities received the new National Parasitic Diseases Laboratory and Training Center in late September during a handover ceremony in Freetown. The new laboratory is the latest installment in Sierra Leone’s ongoing $108 million public health partnership with the United States and U.S. Africa Command. During the handover, U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Jared Yancey said the partnership between Sierra Leone and the U.S. reduced malaria prevalence among children under 5 in Sierra Leone from 40% in 2016 to 22% in 2021. Built…

Tensions are rising in the Horn of Africa as Ethiopia accused neighboring Eritrea of “actively preparing to wage war.” In a letter addressed to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos said Eritrea is “funding, mobilizing, and directing” armed groups inside Ethiopia including the Fano, an ethnically Amhara militia. Gedion also accused the Red Sea nation of collaborating with a hardline faction of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to fuel violence in northern Ethiopia. He warned that if it continues, Ethiopia’s military will have no choice but to respond. “The Ethiopian [National] Defence Force has adopted…

In August, authorities in Niger claimed to have killed Bakura Doro, the leader of Boko Haram, in a drone strike on his headquarters on an island in Lake Chad. Boko Haram has denied Niger’s claim. The attack on Doro’s headquarters came at a time when Nigeria’s oldest terrorist group appears to be reemerging after years of decline following fights over territory with its regional rival, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). The fighting dramatically reduced Boko Haram’s presence in the region. In recent months, however, Boko Haram terrorists have carried out deadly attacks on communities in northeastern Nigeria and…

Jingjing Zhang is a lawyer and environmental activist who has fought Chinese companies that pollute for decades. Her work has brought her to many countries, where she says her native China is using a hazardous development model: Pollute now, get rich and attempt to clean up later. In May, she visited Zambia to advise villagers whose lives were devastated when a toxic waste spill from a Chinese copper mine caused one of the country’s worst ecological disasters. “Companies have a field day when they come here,” Andrew Kombe, a Zambian lawyer who is representing villagers, told Zhang, according to Inside…

Allied Democratic Forces terrorists are capitalizing on chaos in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as security forces focus on the deadly, northward-advancing M23 rebel group. The Allied Democratic Forces has exploited battles between the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and M23 to expand its own operations, which include attacks on civilians and security services. This year, the M23 advanced north to the town of Lubero in the North Kivu province, where both groups had been active but in different areas. “What followed is illustrative of the risk of escalating insecurity through overlapping violence,”…

A surge in gun violence is sweeping across Ghana, with reported incidents more than tripling between the first and second quarters of 2025. In response, Ghanaian authorities are calling for tighter regulations for guns and gun makers. “The rising number of gun-related incidents and the types of weapons identified at crime scenes paint an alarming picture which demands an all-inclusive approach and a robust and more effective legal framework on arms,” Ghana’s National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons wrote in a recent statement. The commission reported 54 gun-related incidents in the second quarter compared to 15 in the…

Civilians in the Lake Chad basin are reporting more attacks by terrorists who loot their property and sometimes kidnap their female family members. The attacks have the hallmarks of a resurgence by the terrorist group Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad (JAS), but they also have an added dimension — raids on military outposts in the region. JAS began in 2002 under its founder Mohammed Yusuf. After Yusuf’s death, JAS formed the core of the terrorism group identified as Boko Haram. In 2016, opponents of then-leader Abubakar Shekau split off to form Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). The two groups have…

Russia’s war on Ukraine has opened a dangerous front in Africa, as the Kremlin is exploiting and tricking job-seeking civilians into being part of its war machine. Kenyan authorities recently broke up a human trafficking ring accused of targeting vulnerable citizens with fake job opportunities in order to lure them to Russia, where they would be forced to fight against Ukraine. On September 24, the Transnational Organized Crime Unit of Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations found 21 Kenyan men who were “awaiting processing to Russia” at Great Wall Apartments, less than 20 kilometers from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.…

An unfamiliar, chemical-like odor wafted from a farm in the tiny, rural eastern South African town of Volksrust. Suspicious residents alerted authorities, who raided the farm in mid-September and uncovered a crystal methamphetamine laboratory and drugs worth $20 million. Authorities found industrial manufacturing equipment along with scales and lunch boxes filled with meth — known locally as “tik” — at the scene. They arrested five Mexican nationals and the farm’s caretaker, while two others escaped. Volksrust is in the Mpumalanga province, about 225 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg. The bust, the third such operation discovered in South Africa in recent years,…