ADF

ADF STAFF There was a thunderous blast, flames shot into the sky and a dark cloud of smoke formed over a tree line near a military base in Equatorial Guinea. Then came another explosion. And another. More than 100 people were killed, including children, and at least 600 more injured by the explosions at Nkoantoma Military Base in Bata on March 7, 2021. Responders blamed the explosions on negligent handling of dynamite. Military depots holding explosives ignited when neighbors at nearby farms lit fires, Deutsche Welle reported. The military camp was built in a forest far from the city, but…

STORY AND PHOTO BY SENIOR AIRMAN TAYLOR DAVIS/U.S. AIR FORCE Modern security partnerships rely on the ability to collect, store and share information safely. Improving information security and interoperability was the goal of a four-day conference in February 2021 in Djibouti. U.S. Soldiers assigned to the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) worked with Soldiers from French Forces Djibouti and the Armed Forces of Djibouti (FAD) in the cyber defense and interoperability engagement. “In 21st century international defense, just as with diplomacy, economics and culture, information is a very powerful currency,” said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Lapthe Flora, CJTF-HOA commander.…

ADF STAFF For several years, Uganda has offered to help its neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), fight a bloodthirsty band of Islamist militants based in its restive northeast region. The group, known as the Allied Democratic Forces, has terrorized the DRC’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces for decades but recently turned its attention to Uganda with a spate of bombings. The most brazen attack in Uganda saw three suicide bombers trigger large explosions in downtown Kampala on November 16, killing at least four people and injuring dozens. But the shockwaves of that attack could lead to the…

ADF STAFF Ghana has implemented a co-management strategy among fisheries stakeholders to protect the livelihoods of artisanal fishermen, conserve fish stocks and combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The policy aims to give small-scale fishermen a greater voice in fisheries management decisions and promote voluntary compliance with the country’s regulations. Ghana’s Parliament approved it in September 2020. Daniel Yaw Owusu, coordinating secretary of the National Fisheries Association of Ghana, said all stakeholders need to adhere to the policy’s principles for it to work. “This document can succeed if only the managers and the regulators turn away from top-management attitude,”…

ADF STAFF The year 2021 in Africa will be remembered like 2020 was — the year of COVID-19. But there were other big stories in 2021 in Africa, the world’s fastest-growing continent. MILITARY COUPS — Over the past two decades, Africa has seen major declines in the frequency of coups. In 2021, however, that trend was reversed. Chad, Guinea, Mali and Sudan had military coups, adding up to more in 2021 than in the previous five years combined in Africa. The Sudan coup was the second in that country in two years. The Sudanese army overthrew President Omar al-Bashir in…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Nigerien police seized a record 17 metric tons of cannabis resin worth about $37 million in a shipment originating in Lebanon and bound for Libya, the nation’s anti-drug trafficking agency said. The drugs had passed through the Togolese port of Lomé before being transported by truck north to the Nigerien capital, Niamey, more than 1,000 kilometers and two border crossings away, said spokesman Adili Toro. Officials seized the haul on March 2, 2021, from warehouses in Niamey. The traffickers had planned to transport the drugs in trucks to Libya via the desert town of Agadez, a hub for…

VOICE OF AMERICA Human Guinea worm cases in six African countries dropped to 27 in 2020, about 50% less than what was recorded the year before, despite COVID-19 challenges. Animal cases fell by 20% over the same period. The figures were announced by the Carter Center, which has played a major role in pushing the disease to the brink of extinction. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter founded the center in 1982 to focus on neglected tropical diseases in humans and animals. The disease is spread when hosts, including humans and dogs, ingest the worm eggs in unfiltered drinking water. The…

BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS At first, the satellite images appear to be of gray blobs in a forest of green splotches. But on closer inspection, those blobs are revealed as elephants wandering among the trees. Scientists are using these images to count African elephants from space. The pictures come from an Earth-observation satellite orbiting 600 kilometers above the planet. The breakthrough could allow up to 5,000 square kilometers of elephant habitat to be surveyed on a single cloud-free day. All the labor-intensive elephant counting is done via a computer algorithm trained to identify elephants against a variety of backdrops. “We…

As East Africa has endured one of the worst locust invasions in 70 years, a Kenyan company is fighting back — by treating the voracious insects as a cash crop. The infestation began in Kenya in late 2019 after a series of unusual weather patterns. The swarm soon began spreading east, into Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen. A single swarm can contain up to 80 million locusts and can travel up to 150 kilometers in one day, depending on the wind.  As of early 2021, exterminators were getting the locusts under control. But a startup company called The Bug Picture also…

ADF STAFF The African Union has launched a website to monitor threats against journalists to protect them and support a free press. The International Federation of Journalists reports that six African journalists were killed in 2020. Many more were threatened, arrested and censored, according to multiple media freedom and human rights groups. The AU website will employ journalism’s most critical tool: facts. The journalists’ safety platform is planned to enable real-time response across Africa, to end impunity for attacks on journalists including harassment, arbitrary arrests, assault and killing. It also will serve as a database to keep track of attacks…