ADF

THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION Francis Okello wanted to kill himself after he was blinded at the age of 12 by an unexploded bomb while digging in his family garden in northern Uganda. “I would have nightmares,” said Okello, who lives in an area that has been scarred by two decades of conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and Ugandan forces. “Life became worthless because I was stigmatized.” Hope returned to Okello’s life when he bonded with a dog called Tiger at his boarding school. At the time he felt ashamed of having to wake people up to guide him…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A pioneering “drone academy” in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, set up by the Ivoirian Electricity Co. (CIE) plans to revolutionize infrastructure inspections and reduce costs. CIE will train about 20 young pilots to inspect its high-voltage lines, which stretch more than 25,000 kilometers across the country. “We have a lot of problems with vegetation; we need to clear it all the time, and it’s difficult because it’s all across the whole country,” said pilot Benjamin Mathon, who is in charge of CIE’s drone and youth training program. Dirt tracks that are impassable after heavy rain, widespread areas of tropical…

Africa Leads in Missions and Participation ADF STAFF African nations distinguish themselves in United Nations and African Union peacekeeping missions on the continent and worldwide. The continent also is home to half — seven of 14 — of all active U.N. missions. In March 2018, there were 91,058 people serving in 14 peacekeeping missions and eight special political missions. Of that total, 10,679 served as police officers, 79,063 served as troops or staff officers, and 1,316 were U.N. military experts on mission (UNMEM). Nations on the African continent contribute the lion’s share of security personnel to United Nations peacekeeping missions…

A New Fighting Force Seeks to Secure the Region Against Jihadists and Illicit Trafficking ADF STAFF Thick, black smoke spewed into the sky above the city of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in March 2018, evidence that radical jihadists again had attacked the bustling capital in Africa’s western Sahel region. The two-pronged attack targeted the French Embassy and Burkina Faso’s military headquarters. The assault killed eight Burkinabe Soldiers and eight assailants. Eighty other people were injured. It was the third extremist attack in the city in just more than two years. Security Minister Clément Sawadogo told journalists that the attack appeared to…

Multilateral Interventions Carry Enormous Promise and Challenges ADF STAFF In early 2017, The Gambia was hurtling toward a crisis. Its longtime president, Yahya Jammeh, had lost the presidential election but refused to accept the results and leave office. His opponent, Adama Barrow, fled the country fearing for his life, prompting his supporters to take to the streets in protest. But on the way to a violent clash, something unusual happened: Five countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) banded together and sent a 7,000-person force to the border of the country. Jammeh was given an ultimatum: Depart…

ADF STAFF In the troubled Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), violence and displacement have become familiar, especially in the east. Local militias and fighters from neighboring countries have exploited the chaos for years now. Among those dangerous groups is the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan-based group that has operated in the DRC since the 1990s. In a series of massacres since 2014 — most by hatchet and machete — the group has killed nearly 1,000 people, Reuters reported. In December 2017, the Allied Democratic Forces killed 15 Tanzanian peacekeepers. The ensuing joint military operation by the DRC and Uganda against…

At the African Land Forces Summit, Commanders Share Stories, Build Partnerships ADF STAFF photos by U.S. ARMY AFRICA On day two of the African Land Forces Summit (ALFS) in Abuja, Nigeria, moderator Dr. Monde Muyangwa asked for a bit of indulgence from the Army commanders in attendance. She wanted to tell the story of an 11-year-old girl growing up in Zambia. The girl stood on the roadside and watched trucks roll by filled with the bodies of war victims. The girl saw her aunt cradle the remains of her children after the family’s home was bombed. That girl, she said,…

Maj. Gen. Abdiweli Jama Gorod was named Somalia’s chief of Defence Forces (CDF) in 2017. He sat down with ADF at the African Land Forces Summit 2018 in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss his career, his efforts to rebuild the Somali National Army (SNA) and his belief that the time is finally right to defeat extremism in the country. The interview was translated from Somali and has been edited to fit this format. ADF: Can you share a bit about your career path? Maj. Gen. Gorod: I joined the military in 1975 as part of the Somali National Air Force. I…

The African Union Mission in Somalia has refined its message to counter al-Shabaab ADF STAFF | photos by AMISOM The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) sometimes has struggled to get its message out. The mission had several false starts in trying to communicate with Somali civilians, people in the troop-contributing countries and the world in general. Now, over the course of the mission’s 11 years, its communications staff has learned to be flexible and to improvise. In May 2018, the mission began taking stock of itself and what it has accomplished — and invited journalists to participate in the process. The self-study took about…

Women Bring Value to Peacekeeping Missions, but Participation Hurdles Remain ADF STAFF Cpl. Laker Doris Patricia of the Ugandan People’s Defence Force drove a large supply truck every day. She carried everything from bullets to bombs. If she wasn’t twisting the truck’s huge steering wheel, she was on standby, ready to buckle up and trundle away. And she did it in the center of Somalia, one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Maj. Gen. Kristin Lund of Norway spent two years as force commander of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus. She was the first woman to command…