ADF

ADF STAFF As a journalist in Kenya, a doctoral student at the Communication University of China and a professor in South Africa, Dr. Bob Wekesa has decades of intimate experience with China’s media and information landscape. A leading media scholar on China and Africa, Wekesa warns that China increasingly is exporting what he calls its model of “total state control of information.” Some authoritarian leaders are finding it to be an enticing sales pitch. “In China, information is just an asset, a resource,” Wekesa said in a May 12 interview with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “It’s capital just…

ADF STAFF Sudanese military officials reported on May 26 that they had intercepted a cache of weapons as they were being smuggled from an unspecified foreign country through the Red Sea region to rebels in the eastern part of the country. The claim was the latest episode of weapons being brought into Sudan to fuel the ongoing battle between the country’s de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy known as Hemedti. The two men have been fighting for control of Sudan since April 15. Both al-Burhan, leader of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and Hemedti, head…

ADF STAFF Crime organizations and terrorist groups have woven a complex trafficking network moving illicit goods such as assault-style rifles, ammunition, explosives and fake medicine throughout the Sahel region. Once used for legitimate trade, the routes cross porous borders in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. “Organized crime is feeding on the vulnerabilities and also undermining stability and development in the Sahel,” François Patuel, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Research and Awareness Unit, said in a new report. “Combining efforts and taking a regional approach will lead…

ADF STAFF When the head of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council removed his deputy, it was not a surprise. The two men are at war with each other in a conflict that is quickly tearing the country apart. Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan announced on May 19 that he was officially firing Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, as the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The two generals had an uncomfortable power-sharing agreement after the 2021 coup that ended a transitional government led by civilians and members of the military. The two generals have one thing in common:…

ADF STAFF With cocaine trafficking at its highest recorded level, West Africa is battling both crime and addiction. The region has historically been a transit region for cocaine as it made its way from South America to Europe, but that role also likely contributed to the development of local markets, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The trend has been unfolding for years. Pierre Lapaque, the UNODC’s regional representative, said he believes drug lords deliberately dump cocaine and other drugs in the region so that local dealers can charge prices low enough to attract new…

ADF STAFF Soldiers with the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) in early May killed several terrorists and recovered a cache of weapons during an operation near Lake Chad in northeast Nigeria. The operation was launched a week after members of Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) attacked the task force’s troops in a nearby village, the MNJTF said in a statement. On May 14, ISWAP claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on MNJTF forces that also was near Lake Chad in northeast Nigeria. That attack killed three MNJTF Soldiers, and an unknown number of terrorists was…

ADF STAFF As violence has escalated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), an array of African forces entered the country with promises of restoring peace. The latest addition, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), agreed on May 8 to deploy a regional force. Among the numerous unknowns is how the force would coexist with the fully deployed East African Community regional force (EACRF). Experts such as Congolese political analyst José Nawej say too many military operations could cause command structure headaches. “It’s going to be a Tower of Babel,” he told Kenya-based newspaper, The East African. DRC President…

ADF STAFF With the handover of command of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), leaders hope to continue the momentum against the extremist group Boko Haram. But observers warn that other groups in the region might prove harder to defeat. Outgoing commander Maj. Gen. Abdul Khalifah Ibrahim of Nigeria presented the flag of the MNJTF to his successor, Maj. Gen. Gold Chibuisi of Nigeria, during a brief ceremony on April 19 at MNJTF headquarters in N’Djamena, Chad. Ibrahim declared that the Lake Chad Basin is in better shape than when he took command in August 2021. “Attacks have dropped by…

ADF STAFF With fighting between Sudan’s rival generals showing no signs of abating, experts are paying close attention to the possibility of the conflict spilling over into the Central African Republic (CAR) and Chad. Sudan’s neighbors to the north and east also face spillover, but its western neighbors share unique ethnic ties, historical bonds, and the presence of rebels and Wagner Group mercenaries that could escalate into a regional conflict. In addition, the CAR and Chad share a border with Sudan’s volatile Darfur region, where fighting has erupted in the past. Thousands of Sudanese already have fled to the CAR…

ADF STAFF Despite promises of security, new data shows that when Wagner Group mercenaries enter a country violence comes with them. Civilian deaths are rising in the Central African Republic (CAR) where the group has operated since 2018, and Mali, where it has operated since late 2021. In the CAR, 40% of all events categorized as “political violence” between December 2020 and July 2022 involved the Wagner Group, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). Since December 2020, the group has been involved in 180 events targeting civilians, while being implicated in forced disappearances, rapes and extrajudicial killings.…