ADF

CLUES This city was developed in the 15th and 16th centuries with the establishment of the Sultanate of Aïr. Its center, which is divided into 11 irregular sections, was an important crossroads for caravan traders. A 27-meter mud-brick minaret, the tallest such structure on Earth, towers above the city. This city is considered a center of culture for the Tuareg people. ANSWER  Agadez, Niger

ADF STAFF May 16, 2003, is etched in the minds of many Moroccans. It was the day that five coordinated suicide bombings killed 43 people in Casablanca and shattered the security of a nation. Ten days later, Parliament passed stringent anti-terror laws. Fast-forward to 2020, and top headlines in Morocco include a terror cell dismantled, an insurgent plot foiled, and would-be militants arrested with weapons and explosive materials. Morocco’s counterterrorism operation extinguished one of its biggest and most recent threats on September 10, as agents of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations arrested five extremists who had pledged allegiance to…

ADF STAFF Illegal fishing robs nations of natural wealth and leads to food insecurity, but African countries have the tools to fight back. The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) issued a report detailing ways countries can combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The foundation’s Charter for Transparency lists several simple, low-cost steps countries can take to confront the practice. Many illegal trawlers are apt to change vessel names, fly different flags and remove ships from registers. The EJF report — available at ejfoundation.org — says one simple remedy is for all countries to publish vessel license lists and ownership details…

ADF STAFF Running from Mombasa to Nairobi, Kenya’s controversial Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) has come to represent everything that can go wrong with African nations’ complex and sometimes covert financial ties with China. As African countries confront steep economic losses because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the overwhelming infrastructure debts they owe China have begun to choke their economies. High interest-rate loans, confidentiality agreements that thwart public transparency, and loans that Chinese authorities remain unwilling to reconfigure are some of the challenges African economic leaders now face. As a result, countries find themselves pushed to the brink of default or, in…

ADF STAFF Armed members of Benin’s Navy have arrested an industrial trawler for illegally fishing in an area reserved for artisanal fishermen. Sea Shepherd Global, which works with several West African countries to eradicate illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, assisted the authorities. A Sea Shepherd vessel was en route to Benin’s Port of Cotonou when it spotted the trawler fishing in water just outside the Bouche du Roy Ecological Reserve, home to lush mangroves and lagoons critical to native fish populations. “The trawler was flagged to Benin, but I believe that the beneficial ownership is Chinese,” Peter Hammarstedt, Sea…

ADF STAFF With shots ringing out in the dead of night, a group of villagers and refugees were running away from a camp for displaced people when they saw a young girl in pain on the ground. They asked her to join them. She refused. “Seconds after, we heard the first loud explosion,” a 32-year-old man in the group told international advocacy organization Human Rights Watch (HRW). “We believe she was the suicide bomber. She could have been 14 years old or so.” In an attack as gruesome as it was depraved, Boko Haram fighters on August 2 swarmed the…

ADF STAFF Kenya’s National Border Protection Unit got a boost, thanks to a donation of vehicles, equipment and training facilities by U.S. Africa Command. The recent $1.17 million donation included 35 new Toyota Land Cruisers, 23 sets of M4 rifles and 9 mm Glock pistols, body armor, and a Multiple Incident Learning Objectives firearms simulator, along with computers and equipment for new training rooms. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta attended the presentation ceremony at the Border Police Unit (BPU) headquarters and training facility in Kitui County. “We understand that in a dynamic operating environment characterized by emerging and asymmetrical threats, investment…

ADF STAFF The name of terrorist group Boko Haram translates loosely to “Western education is forbidden.” A spate of attacks against schools in northern Cameroon shows the group is following through on this deadly pledge. Wedged between Nigeria to the west and Chad to the east, Cameroon’s Far North Region is on the front line of Boko Haram’s insurgency. It has seen a sharp spike in violence, with statistics showing about 400 incidents over the past year — a 90% increase over the previous year, according to an analysis by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. Ousmanu Amadou Garga of…

ADF STAFF The Gambia made progress in its fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in November when authorities arrested four trawlers in waters reserved for local fishermen. The arrests were made with the help of Sea Shepherd Global. It was no surprise that the trawlers were Chinese, as the majority of vessels arrested through Sea Shepherd’s partnership with African nations are Chinese-owned or Chinese-flagged, Peter Hammarstedt, Sea Shepherd’s director of campaigns, told ADF in an email. China’s ability to have a global reach in fishing is due in large part to government subsidies. No other nation spends more…

ADF STAFF In recent weeks, the world has seen shocking images coming out of Ethiopia. Refugees streaming across the border into Sudan. Tanks preparing to shell strategic targets in Mekelle, the largest city in the country’s north. Regional forces vowing to fight the federal government to the bitter end. A nation on the brink of civil war. So, how did it come to this? As Africa’s second-most-populous nation and one of the largest troop contributors to peacekeeping missions around the world, Ethiopia has long been a pillar of stability. “Ethiopia is the anchor state of the Horn of Africa,” Murithi…