ADF

ADF STAFF Eyesight is a precious gift, but eye care is woefully underfunded in many parts of the world. More than 2.5 billion people globally suffer from visual impairment that could be corrected with eyeglasses. So when the U.S. Army partnered with the G5 Sahel Joint Force in Mali to help the civilian population in the West African country, they decided eye care was a good place to start. In February 2020, the U.S. Army Civil Military Support Element (CMSE) and the G5 Sahel Civil Military Cooperation Unit provided consultations, eye exams and, ultimately, distributed about 500 pairs of glasses…

ADF STAFF As Kenya works to secure its border and stop traffickers, it got a boost in the form of vehicle donations. The U.S. government has donated 10 Toyota Hilux pickup trucks to investigators with Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. Kenyan officials received the vehicles from U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Kyle McCarter during a ceremony at the DCI headquarters in Nairobi. They were provided by U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). McCarter said the vehicles were part of the long, friendly relationship between the U.S. and…

ADF STAFF In the effort to stanch the spread of COVID-19 in Kenya, the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi has donated thousands of face masks to key groups needing protection from the virus as they do their essential work. On June 1, Ambassador Kyle McCarter presented 1,000 masks to Kenyan journalists at a gathering with the Kenyan Editors Guild, the Kenya Union of Journalists and the Media Council of Kenya. The USA Marafiki masks represent the long and friendly relationship between the United States and the people of Kenya, according to the embassy. U.S. Africa Command provided the masks. “Kenyan journalists…

REUTERS Nigeria and neighbors Benin and Niger have agreed to set up a joint border patrol force to tackle smuggling among the West African countries. Foreign ministers from the three countries met to discuss smuggling after a decision by Nigeria, which has Africa’s largest economy and biggest population, to close its land borders to trade until at least January 31, 2020. Nigeria launched a partial border closure to tackle the smuggling of rice and other goods. After that, all trade via land borders was halted indefinitely. The joint communique from the meeting in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, said Benin’s and Niger’s…

ADF STAFF As desert locusts spread across East Africa in February 2020, Uganda deployed 2,000 Soldiers to battle the pests. Ugandan troops used pesticide on the ground as authorities tried to secure helicopters for aerial spraying. However, Maj. Gen. Sam Kavuma, deputy commander of land forces for the Uganda People’s Defence Force, said locusts can evade such efforts. “One challenge, which is being solved, that is aerial support to spray them,” Kavuma told Voice of America. “We deal much with those which are on the ground. And when we kill them, or during the spray then they jump and go…

U.S. Africa Command Staff The people of the Sahel are resilient. They have to be. The 5,000-kilometer-long band below the Sahara is marked by extreme beauty and a harsh climate. Farmers defy the odds to grow crops in semiarid conditions. Herders travel long distances to find pastures for their flocks. Communities uphold traditions that date back centuries. But in recent years residents of this region have battled a new foe: extremism. Since the 2012 Malian crisis, homegrown and foreign extremist groups have expanded in the region. They’ve recruited young people, exacerbated ethnic tensions and destabilized governments. The past two years…

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari spoke on Democracy Day on June 12, 2019. Until 2018, Democracy Day, which marks the restoration of democracy in Nigeria, was observed on May 29. But Buhari has since moved recognition to June 12 to correspond with the day in 1993 when presidential elections were held for the first time since the 1983 military coup. The speech has been edited to fit this format. Terrorism and insecurity are worldwide phenomena, and even the best-policed countries are experiencing increasing incidents of unrest. Most of the instances of intercommunal and interreligious strife and violence were and still are a…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE  |  Photos by AFP/GETTY IMAGES Fish vendor Mercy Allotey waits in Accra, Ghana, for customers to buy the freshest catch. But she says fishermen are netting less because illegal techniques and unscrupulous trawlers have devastated stocks. “It is spoiling our fishing,” she said. “Many times when they go, they don’t get the fish.” The fishing sector supports more than 2 million people, and it generates about 60% of the protein in Ghanaians’ diet. United Nations data show that production fell from almost 420,000 metric tons in 1999 to 202,000 metric tons in 2014. To blame are the mainly…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Something extraordinary lay inside the wooden drawer in an office behind Nairobi National Museum. It’s a monstrous jawbone with colossal fangs — the only known remains of a prehistoric mega-carnivore declared to be a new species in 2019. “This is one of a kind,” said Kenyan paleontologist Job Kibii, holding up the 23-million-year-old bones of Simbakubwa kutokaafrika. For nearly 40 years, the specimens — proof of the existence of Africa’s largest-ever predator, a 1,500 kilogram meat eater that dwarfed lions — sat in a drawer in downtown Nairobi. How did these fossils, first excavated on a dig in…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE South African fashion designer Innocent Molefe was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) in 2015. Three years later it developed into a multidrug-resistant strain requiring painful injections and heaps of pills. Three months after the first round of treatment, he relapsed and started a second round. At the end of it, he still wasn’t cured. Thanks to a new treatment approved in August 2019 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, he is clear of the disease and back to work. “I was willing to beat TB, and I’m living proof,” he said. Of the more than 1.6 million TB…