ADF

ADF STAFF  |  Photos: AFP/Getty Images Sudan was in a hopeful position after shaking off 30 years of brutal, autocratic rule in 2019. A vicious dictator had been toppled, a new prime minister was talking about forming a more professional security sector, and civilians and military officials had set up a government that was crawling toward democracy. After two fraught years under the tenuous transitional government, however, the nation’s ugly history got in the way. A failed uprising in September 2021 by soldiers loyal to former President Omar al-Bashir was but a prelude to a coup a month later when…

ADF STAFF Cabo Verdean police intercepted a boat in early April suspected to be involved with international drug trafficking. The Brazilian boat contained more than 5 tons of cocaine. The operation, which included help from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, U.S. Navy, Brazilian Federal Police and the National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom, resulted in the arrests of five Brazilians and two Montenegrins. The bust underscored the reality that West Africa is a major stop on the cocaine route from South America to Europe. “West Africa, as a region, is very vulnerable, due to corruption, unemployment, poverty,” Maria-Gorreti…

ADF STAFF Musa Barkame once made his living transporting goods by boat across Lake Chad to markets in Nigeria. All that ended when Boko Haram arrived in the region. “Trading between here and Nigeria is the only job I know,” Barkame told Al-Jazeera while sitting in his waterlogged boat on the Chadian side of the lake. The last time he used his boat, it was to rescue villagers from Boko Haram raids. Now, the boat sits idle, waiting for the day it will return to duty. Like thousands of farmers, fishermen and cattle herders, Barkame is caught between two forces…

ADF STAFF The military junta ruling Guinea has given Chinese and other international mining companies until the end of May to produce plans for higher pay and improved conditions or face penalties. The request calls for expanding refining capacity, improving working and environmental conditions, and increasing the royalties mining companies pay as part of extracting bauxite and iron ore. “Despite the mining boom in the bauxite sector, we have to admit that the expected revenues are below expectations,” junta leader Col. Mamady Doumbouya told industry stakeholders during a recent gathering in the capital, Conakry, broadcast on state television. “The respect…

ADF STAFF Fear of famine in Africa is rising due to the ripple effects of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and a drought across the continent. After Russia invaded Ukraine, many countries have seen food prices surge. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) estimates that food prices hit a 14-year high in March. Oil has spiked to its highest prices since 2008. Fertilizer also has skyrocketed in price. Economics professor Vitalii Dankevych of Polissia National University in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, said the war has stopped some Ukrainian farmers from planting crops, which usually begins in the third week of…

ADF STAFF Soldiers in the Tunisian Army were in the village of Kesra in July 2021, taking on duties that once seemed unimaginable. At the village’s health center, Soldiers armed with rifles stood guard outside, while military medics administered COVID-19 vaccines inside. Tunisia was facing its worst COVID-19 surge since the pandemic began more than a year earlier, and the government ordered the military to help lead the response. Military health workers vaccinated thousands of people in Kesra and other villages in the central part of the country. Tunisian President Kais Saied said he would send military helicopters to the…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS In Kenya, the road linking the capital, Nairobi, and the town of Naivasha had some rather different-looking cars on it jostling with the matatus, buses and lorries. The rally cars were in the country in June 2021 as the World Rally Championship (WRC) returned for the first time in 19 years. The world-renowned Safari Rally was a regular part of the WRC calendar between 1973 and 2002 and was considered the championship’s toughest race. Financial issues caused the event to be removed from the calendar in 2003. COVID-19 delayed its planned comeback in 2020, but Africa’s…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS The discovery of a 3,000-year-old city that was lost to the sands of Egypt has been hailed as one of the most important archaeological finds since Tutankhamun’s tomb. Famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass announced the discovery of the “lost golden city” near Luxor. He said the find was the largest ancient city, known as Aten, ever uncovered in Egypt. The city dates to the reign of Amenhotep III, one of Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs, who ruled from 1391 to 1353 B.C. The city continued to be used by pharaohs Ay and Tutankhamun, whose nearly intact tomb was…

ADF STAFF A nine-part series charting the global rise of Afrobeats has premiered in Lagos, Nigeria. “Afrobeats: The Backstory” was shot over the course of 20 years. The documentary was produced by Nigerian filmmaker Ayo Shonaiya and financed by the music streaming service Boomplay, according to the BBC. Boomplay, with its 56 million subscribers, has provided a reliable, flexible platform to support African music of all genres. It is the largest music-streaming platform in Sub-Saharan Africa. Afrobeats is not to be confused with Afrobeat, a genre developed in the 1960s and 1970s and mixed in with American jazz and funk.…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS “Africa … We are here! Game on!” were the words used by Amadou Gallo Fall of Senegal to launch the inaugural Basketball Africa League (BAL) in May 2021. Fall, the league’s president, was on hand for the ceremonial tip-off of the U.S. National Basketball Association (NBA)-backed competition at Kigali Arena in Rwanda. The honor of scoring the first points in BAL went to former NBA player Ben Uzoh, a Nigerian-American. “It will change lives. This is going to create opportunities for the people across the continent to feed their families,” Uzoh told BBC Sport Africa. “It…