ADF

ADF STAFF A skiff carrying up to 10 armed pirates approached a Sea Shepherd Global vessel off the coast of Benin. When the skiff got to within about 100 meters of the Bob Barker, the pirates got a surprise. The Sea Shepherd boat was carrying armed members of the Beninese Navy, who were patrolling in search of illegal fishing vessels. “The armed Benin Navy Sailors on board Bob Barker fired 10 warning shots,” Peter Hammarstedt, Sea Shepherd’s director of campaigns, told ADF in an email. “The pirates then retreated.” The November 2020 incident highlighted a trend in an area long…

ADF STAFF The Kenya Air Force (KAF) recently became the first African country to take ownership of the C-145A Skytruck aircraft for use in rapid response, aerial patrols and military interventions. The KAF received the first of three aircraft in a ceremony April 20 at Moi Air Force Base in Nairobi. KAF commander Maj. Gen. Francis Ogolla presided over the transfer. “It is a great day today as we introduce the C-145 Skytruck aircraft,” Ogolla said during the transfer ceremony. “This aircraft will not be in the service for display, but to enhance the capability of our air support to…

ADF STAFF When the extremist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in the remote town of Chibok, Nigeria, in 2014, it horrified the world. International headlines catalyzed into a huge campaign by celebrities, politicians, governments and rights groups across television, newspapers and social media. In 2016 and 2017, more than 100 girls were freed, but at least 100 of the remaining girls are still thought to be captive. But Boko Haram’s kidnapping strategy has gained it notoriety, adherents and, in some cases, ransom payments. “The group was relatively unknown before their kidnap of the Chibok girls,” Nigerian researcher Hakeem Onapajo…

ADF STAFF For nearly a decade, the people of Mandera County in northeast Kenya have lived under constant threat from the extremist group al-Shabaab as it has sown death and chaos along the border region. Those same people might hold the key to defeating the terrorists. Building trust and supporting the community are the best way to help security forces in the fight against al-Shabaab, a new report by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa) concluded. “Although the government has made attempts to push the terrorists out of Kenya, it won’t succeed without community support and an extensive intelligence…

ADF STAFF Last October, two workers from the Samira gold mine in western Niger died when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device (IED). Five months later, in February, another bomb killed members of the nation’s Independent National Electoral Commission on the day of the presidential election. IEDs have become a major safety issue in Niger, where porous borders allow extremists such as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) to cross over from neighboring Mali. ISGS is active in the Tillaberi region, where the mine workers and the electoral commission workers were killed. “Improvised explosive devices are one…

ADF STAFF Recent satellite images of West Africa showed a concentration of light blue dots from Mauritania to Gabon. Farther down the coast, more of the clusters appeared around Angola and Namibia. The dots represented industrial fishing trawlers actively fishing in the areas, where illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) has existed for decades. The illegal fishing has decimated livelihoods of local fishermen, severely depleted overfished stocks and wreaked environmental havoc. A new study by the University of Delaware used the images produced by vessels’ automatic identification systems (AIS) — and provided by Global…

ADF STAFF When given the keys to one of two newly constructed health clinics, Gado Guidami raised and shook them in celebration. Guidami, mayor of the border town of Malanville in northeastern Benin, knew the significance the clinics would have for the villages of Godjekoara and Money. He knew countless lives would be saved within those walls. He knew the empty structures would quickly become bustling community centerpieces and sources of pride. “The buildings are bringing light and joy into the Godjekoara and Money communities’ lives,” he said. Both main clinic buildings include maternity wards, dispensaries and midwife’s quarters. Other…

ADF STAFF A rapid response by public health officials armed with vaccines appears to have contained the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But recent research into the cause of the outbreak has medical experts concerned about more and larger outbreaks in the future. The Ebola outbreak began in the DRC’s North Kivu province in February. Teams from the Ministry of Health, World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and other groups responded quickly by tracing contacts and administering vaccinations designed to stop the virus from spreading. By March 22, half of North Kivu’s dozen Ebola victims…

ADF STAFF The captains of industrial fishing vessels Friendship 806 and Friendship 888 had no idea they were being watched. The trawlers were anchored overnight just outside Sierra Leone’s inshore exclusion zone (IEZ) reserved for artisanal fishermen. At first light, they made their way into the prohibited area dragging their nets in the water. Sailing through waters full of small-scale artisanal pirogues, they soon were intercepted by two of Sea Shepherd Global’s rigid-hull inflatable boats, which carried gun-toting Sailors from the Sierra Leonean Navy. “We’d been watching them on radar all night,” Peter Hammarstedt, Sea Shepherd’s director of campaigns, told…

ADF STAFF A large trawler shined its huge, stadium-style lights into the deep waters of the western Indian Ocean. The lights were meant to attract tuna and squid, but the trawler was using illegal driftnets — banned 30 years ago by the United Nations — and these nets hauled in sharks and manta rays about 500 miles off Somalia’s coast. Driftnets hang vertically from flotation devices dragged by fishing boats and can scoop up indiscriminate amounts of marine life. In mid-April, Greenpeace released a report on the use of driftnets after spending two weeks tracking fishing vessels in the region.…