ADF STAFF For more than a decade, the terror group al-Shabaab has used the abduction and recruitment of thousands of children in Somalia to fuel its deadly insurgency. It happened again in what has recently become an epicenter of armed conflict — the central Mudug region. But this time, the children fought back. According to Somali National Army (SNA) Commander Isma’il Abdi Malik Malin, al-Shabaab militants swept into the town of Ba’adweyn on August 12, invading land occupied by herders. Looking to set up a new base in the area, the extremists demanded that residents give them money and animals…
ADF
ADF STAFF As part of its ongoing support of the Nigerien Armed Forces’ anti-extremism efforts, U.S. Ambassador to Niger Eric P. Whitaker recently presented Niger’s military with $8 million in equipment and spare parts, including 22 American-made Mamba armored vehicles. Minister of National Defense Issoufou Katambé received the equipment on behalf of the Nigerien Armed Forces (FAN). “These modern vehicles will help increase the mobility of units of the Nigerien Armed Forces by helping them to maintain pressure on the various terrorist armed groups which attack populations and symbols of the state,” Katambé said during the August 5 ceremony in…
ADF STAFF Fireworks erupted at a recent Nigerian National Assembly meeting. The explosive subject? A probe of loans from China since 2000 and whether Nigeria’s sovereignty could be at stake if it were to default. China has long been accused of using “debt-trap diplomacy,” in which it saddles a developing country with a high debt burden only to extract concessions later on. The issue has taken on far greater urgency and caused widespread economic anxiety in Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy, because of the dual tolls of the COVID-19 pandemic and plunging oil prices. Nigeria’s 2020 budget revision sparked a…
ADF STAFF The sight of 50-meter-long trawlers has become increasingly common at the port in Monrovia, Liberia. The arrival of six such Chinese-owned vessels in June stoked fears among artisanal fishermen of a further depletion of precious fish stocks. Chinese trawlers have fished West African waters for years, robbing locals of food and income. In Liberia, roughly 37,000 people work full or part time in the fishing industry, and 80% of the population relies on fish for protein. But the supertrawlers are larger than any fishing vessels ever seen in Liberia and use more sophisticated equipment to track fish and…
ADF STAFF Young Gambian men balance heavy boxes of fish on their heads as they hurry across the slick floor of a Chinese-owned fishmeal factory. They dump the fish onto a large pile and hustle back to a trawler for more. At the Golden Lead fishmeal plant in Gunjur, supervisors dock the pay of workers who move too slowly. Ahmed Manjang, a microbiologist and environmental activist from Gunjur, posted video of the factory scene on Twitter. “How can a developing country like The Gambia sustain this level of the pillage of [its] most valuable natural resources?” he wrote. In The…
ADF STAFF In April 2019, officials in Singapore intercepted nearly 13 metric tons of pangolin scales. They were hidden in dozens of identical sacks. It was the largest case of pangolin-related smuggling in a year in which customs authorities discovered nearly 70 metric tons of scales moving secretly between Africa and Asia, largely to support the market for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Putting a stop to the trade in pangolin parts means determining where they came from and who might be responsible for poaching them. Until recently, those details were hard to pin down. Increasingly, researchers and wildlife advocates are…
ADF STAFF As Chad fights extremism, technology donated by the U.S. is helping unite a diverse group of far-flung civil-society organizations at a time when travel can be dangerous. “With this COVID-19 situation, we have to rethink everything,” Brahim Kourtou, Chad’s country director for the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Partnership for Peace program, told ADF. Partnership for Peace is one of 15 organizations that recently gathered over Zoom with the G5 Sahel Regional Cell for the Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism (CellRad) to discuss the ongoing work of countering extremist groups such as Boko Haram that…
ADF STAFF Foreign trawlers engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing off the West African coast are decimating once-abundant fish populations, devastating local ecosystems and threatening the livelihoods of more than 7 million Africans, many of whose families have relied on artisanal fishing for generations. It is estimated that IUU fishing and other illegal marine trade could cost West African countries “nearly $1.95 billion across the fish value chain and $593 million per year in lost household income,” according to a recent story in The Africa Report. The cost of illicit fishing is especially acute for artisanal fishermen in…
ADF STAFF Striking an important blow against wildlife poaching, Malawi recently sentenced members of the Lin-Zhang crime syndicate to a collective 56.5 years in prison for trafficking in wildlife parts. The court sentenced nine members of the gang — seven Chinese nationals and two Malawians— in July, closing a yearslong pursuit by Malawian law enforcement officials. The nine are among 14 gang members Malawian police arrested in May 2019. Lin-Zhang, considered one of the most prolific wildlife trafficking organizations in southern Africa, has been operating in Malawi and nearby countries for a decade. Officials arrested the leader of the organization,…
ADF STAFF The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) recently donated a new police station to the Somali Police Force in Baidoa, as terrorist attacks persist in the Horn of Africa nation. With a population of nearly 301,000, Baidoa is the largest city in the country’s southwestern Bay region. The Dutch government funded construction of the Bakiin Police Station, to which 30 officers will be assigned. AMISOM police also will use the station as the mission continues to train and mentor the Somali Police Force (SPF). “This station is located in a strategic area, on the edge of the town,…