ADF

ADF STAFF In recent years, the uses for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have multiplied across Africa. Drones have been used to fertilize crops, monitor wildlife and deliver medicine to hard-to-reach places. Drone technology has grown rapidly worldwide and is projected to be a $43 billion global industry by 2024. In many ways, Africa has become the proving ground for drone technology. South Africa is the continent’s biggest market for drones, employing them in mining, security and agriculture, among other uses. Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda are increasingly important players in drone technology. Until recently, UAVs were almost…

ADF STAFF Emmanuel Essien has been missing since July 2019. Essien, a 28-year-old Ghanaian fisheries observer, was working on board the Chinese trawler Meng Xin 15 when he captured video of the crew engaging in saiko, a practice in which a catch is transferred from a trawler to a large canoe. The illegal catch then is sold to local communities for profit, but authorities are unable to trace the origin of the fish. Two weeks after Essien took the video and made a report to local authorities, he disappeared from his cabin on the Meng Xin 15. According to the…

ADF STAFF Extremist groups in the Sahel are eyeing gold mines as a way to pay for weapons, vehicles and other equipment required to launch deadly attacks. Burkina Faso, the fastest-growing gold producer on the continent, has found itself in the crosshairs as extremist groups fight to gain control of small-scale artisanal mines in the country’s northeast. “The terrorists hear that this site or that one is thriving with gold, and then they target those sites –– they can kill everyone or they take control and take taxes,” Kibsa Ouedraogo, a traditional chief of the village of Noaka, told Financial…

ADF STAFF It was 2 a.m. on Saturday, June 5, 2021, when the calm of night in the village of Solhan, Burkina Faso, was interrupted by the sound of motorcycles, then gunshots. Terrorists opened fire on residents of the gold-mining community, burned homes and markets, and carried out executions until dawn. Local authorities reported a death toll of at least 160 — the deadliest attack since violence spilled into the country in 2015. The most disturbing detail of the attack was revealed weeks later by government spokesman Ousseni Tamboura. “The attackers were mostly children between the ages of 12 and…

ADF STAFF As Mozambique’s neighbors in Southern Africa join its four-year fight against insurgents in the Cabo Delgado region, observers are celebrating early gains while warning of the potential for a prolonged and costly engagement. Under the auspices of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), Botswana, Rwanda, South Africa and others dispatched troops to bolster Mozambique’s response to the Islamic insurgency, known locally al-Shabab. In recent years, attacks by extremists have killed 3,000 people and driven up to 800,000 from their homes. Rwanda, which is not part of SADC, was the first nation to deploy troops to the region. In…

ADF STAFF The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) and a fisheries intelligence analysis company have joined forces with Senegal’s government on a new program focused on promoting transparency among the nation’s fisheries and ridding the country of illegal fishing. Funded by Oceans 5, a philanthropic organization dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans, the nearly $1.2 million, three-year project with EJF and Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT) aims to publish up-to-date fishing license lists and vessel registries online. It will also empower artisanal fishermen to play a role in surveillance and monitoring efforts at the port of Dakar, as well as the government’s…

ADF STAFF Australia’s national science agency and Microsoft have joined forces to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the technology company are linking artificial and human intelligence by using robotic underwater cameras and sound-detecting technology known as hydrophones to alert authorities of suspicious sea activity around Indonesia and the Great Barrier Reef. The high-resolution cameras can capture a vessel’s type and features, where it has traveled, the direction in which it is moving and how fast. Hydrophones can record sounds from vessel engines, air compressors and winches, and explosives used…

ADF STAFF The threat of piracy across the Gulf of Guinea has caused shipping companies to call on South African boat builder Paramount Maritime for help. The company manufactures specially made vessels to protect ships that transit hazardous water like the Gulf, which is the world’s hot spot for kidnappings. Based in Cape Town, Paramount Maritime has grown rapidly in recent years. The company, which made 60 vessels between 2004 and 2019, has nearly half that on order. “We pioneered the security patrol market in West Africa,” Stuart McVitty, chief executive officer of Paramount Maritime, told Bloomberg. “We’ve seen steady…

ADF STAFF Along the coastline of East Africa, piracy, trafficking and illegal fishing are ever-present threats. Aiming to improve regional security, the maritime forces of 11 East African nations joined the U.S. Navy for Exercise Cutlass Express. Hosted by Kenya, the event featured training in ports and in waters near Djibouti, Kenya, Madagascar and the Seychelles from July 26 to August 6. “The Western Indian Ocean has been rife with many maritime challenges for a prolonged period of time due to the porous vast sea area,” Brig. Thomas Nganga, commander of Kenya’s Mtongwe Naval Base, said during the opening ceremony…

ADF STAFF When South Africa’s former President Jacob Zuma turned himself in to police July 7 to serve a 15-month jail sentence, hundreds of his supporters were gathered near his home in the KwaZulu-Natal province, some armed with guns, spears and shields. What had been a long legal drama that ended with Zuma being found guilty of contempt of court quickly turned into violence, which tested the country’s ability to enforce law and order. Nine days of South Africa’s worst civil unrest since the end of apartheid in 1994 has experts saying the violence exposed weaknesses in the country’s security…