ADF

Tanzanian Cpl. Ali Khamis Omary was serving in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, trying to halt the spread of Ebola. He and his colleagues had been sent to a camp in the eastern part of the country on a joint mission with peacekeepers from Malawi. Rebels attacked Omary and other peacekeepers on November 14, 2018. He was shot in the leg, and Malawian Pvt. Chancy Chitete rushed to help him, administering lifesaving first aid. Chitete dragged Omary to safety despite enemy fire, but he was shot and killed in the process. Thanks to…

ADF STAFF The Baba Ali, a Seychellois fishing vessel, was passing through the Seychelles exclusive economic zone (EEZ) when authorities intercepted it in May 2021. Through an operation coordinated by the Seychelles Air Force, Seychelles Coast Guard and its National Information Sharing and Coordination Centre, authorities boarded and inspected the vessel. What they found –– about $1.2 million worth of heroin and hashish –– signifies the magnitude of the regional trafficking threat. The drug seizure and the arrest of three Seychellois and four Indonesian nationals showed that the island state’s efforts to bolster maritime security were working, Seychellois Fisheries Minister…

ADF STAFF Aircraft from the Royal Moroccan Air Force and U.S. Navy Carrier Air Wing 3 flew over the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Atlantic Ocean on March 3, 2021, during exercise Lightning Handshake. The Eisenhower, named after a former U.S. president whose nickname was “Ike,” is the flagship of the IKE Carrier Strike Group (IKE CSG), which participated in the exercise. The training’s purpose was to improve the ability of the U.S. and Morocco to operate together across multiple warfare areas, including surface, anti-submarine and air-and-strike warfare; combined logistics support; and maritime interdiction operations. “On…

ADF STAFF As a brutal civil war raged in neighboring Liberia in 1991, Sierra Leone’s long-standing government corruption and weakness inched the nation closer and closer to catastrophe. When the forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) crossed the border that March, Sierra Leone soon found itself under attack on two fronts. As its Army battled the NPFL, Sierra Leone also came under attack from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a well-armed and well-funded rebel guerrilla group led by Foday Sankoh, a former Army corporal who found common cause with the invading Liberians. Civil war had come…

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…