ADF

ADF STAFF An Ashanti woman who shamed her tribe’s warriors into standing up for themselves more than 100 years ago has become a symbol of freedom for Ghana. Nana Yaa Asantewaa’s actions provoked the final Anglo-Ashanti war, known as the War of the Golden Stool. In 1752, the British established a trading colony they called the Gold Coast on the Gulf of Guinea. It would become their hub for African trade which included gold, diamonds, wood, ivory, cocoa and grain. By the late 1800s, the British continued to expand their territory into local kingdoms and forced tribal leaders to submit…

CLUES The name of this valley translates to “fountain of doubt.” The site is best known for having one of the largest collections of petroglyphs (rock engravings) in Africa. Figures on rocks include elephants, ostriches, giraffes, people and footprints. Some are from the late Stone Age. The rock art provides an extensive record of hunter-gatherer community rituals covering at least 2,000 years. ANSWER  Twyfelfontein (formally known as /Ui-//aes) in the Damara highland, Namibia

ADF STAFF Benin’s military is working to reassure communities in its northern border areas that it can protect the region from further terrorist incursions from Burkina Faso, Mali and elsewhere in the Sahel. “The Beninese army is sufficiently equipped to ward off all the scourges that can disturb the tranquility of the Beninese,” Alain Fortunet Nouatin, Benin’s minister of defense, recently told africanews.com. Long considered one of West Africa’s most stable nations, Benin has seen its stability threatened since terrorists based in Mali attacked the border town of Porga in December 2021. That attack came after multiple reports of extremists moving…

ADF STAFF Aidu Williams has spent 40 years fishing in Goderich wharf on the western axis of Sierra Leone’s Freetown peninsula. He used to go to sea and return with large coolers full of grouper and snapper in his wooden canoe, but those days are over. Over the past three decades, foreign industrial trawlers have diminished fish populations near shore. Williams and other artisanal fishermen now must venture farther out to sea, often returning with little or no catch. With so much money spent on fuel, crews sometimes go unpaid after working backbreaking hours on the water. “Before, we experienced…

ADF STAFF The word “momentum” was repeated often during the first in-person Naval Infantry Leaders Symposium-Africa (NILS-A) held in Dakar, Senegal. For security leaders attending it reflects a growing consensus of the need to build partnerships and invest in the naval infantry, which is at the “tip of the spear” in the continent’s toughest fights against terrorism, trafficking and piracy in its littoral zones. “We all came here for the same reason: to defend freedom,” said Maj. Gen. Tracy King, the commander U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa. “I sense the momentum in this room from we 30 nations…

ADF STAFF Increasing attacks in northern Togo have targeted civilians and military personnel — yet another sign of Sahel terror groups progressively expanding and threatening coastal West Africa. Togo declared a “state of security emergency” in its northern border Savanes region on June 13, 2022, in response to the first deadly terrorist attack in the country’s history in early May. “It [the state of emergency] will enhance the speed of decision making and facilitate greater agility for public services and defense and security forces,” the government said in a statement. Minister of Communication Akodah Ayewouadan said the state of emergency…

ADF STAFF Ethiopia is awash in ethnic violence. At a time when the prospect of peace talks to end the bloody civil war between the federal government and the Tigray region in the north is materializing, age-old wounds have blasted open in the west. “Well before the conflict [with Tigray] in northern Ethiopia, there has been widespread impunity for ongoing rights abuses in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, including in areas already suffering from conflict,” international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a July 4 report. “Many of these abuses still persist and require urgent international attention.” Two massacres in late…

ADF STAFF Checkpoints line the road between Tanguieta and Porga in northern Benin as Soldiers in armored vehicles patrol the region for terrorist activity. This normally quiet corner of West Africa has seen four terrorist attacks since December by Mali-based Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an extremist group linked to al-Qaida. “We used to live a quiet life,” Mounou Y’Moussa, the imam of the central mosque in Porga, told the German news agency DW.com. “Today, it’s all about uncertainty and insecurity.” Porga is a border town near the Point Triple where Benin, Togo, and Burkina Faso meet. Attacks there in…

ADF STAFF Artisanal fishermen in East Africa have relied on sea cucumbers for food and income for generations. Now, the leathery, pickle-shaped species is overfished in many parts of the region, including Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Seychelles and Zanzibar. The species is increasingly smuggled to China and Hong Kong where it is considered a delicacy and often used in traditional Chinese medicine. “The illegal trade in sea cucumbers is mainly a result of illegal fishing operations in source countries, or they have been traded under the declaration of other species, or they have not been declared and were smuggled with other…

ADF STAFF Sudanese miners are blaming Russia’s infamous Wagner Group mercenaries for massacres along the porous border between South Darfur state and the Central African Republic (CAR). Witnesses say the Wagner Group,  with close ties to the Kremlin, has fought to loot the region’s rich gold mines in recent months, as Russian mercenaries killed scores of miners in at least three major attacks. Two Sudanese miners who survived attacks in March by Wagner mercenaries said they were detained for days and tortured. “There are multinational fighters with the Russian security company,” one of the witnesses told news website Middle East…