ADF

ADF STAFF Terrified residents in Mocimboa da Praia, a small town in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, fled the area in late June amid ongoing clashes between militants and Mozambique’s Defence and Security Forces (FDS). Many people were missing and several feared dead after the violence settled. Although the FDS regained control of the town, attackers still were nearby. “It was about 5 in the afternoon when the attackers came and started burning houses. I ran with my wife, and they shot her; they killed her in front of me,” Jaime Momade, a displaced villager, told Al-Jazeera. “I managed to escape.…

ADF STAFF As Kenya and China square off in court over a $3.2 billion contract to build a railway system, the future of Mombasa Port, one of East Africa’s greatest assets, could be at stake. Kenya’s Court of Appeals has ruled that the contract for the country’s new Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) was illegally bid. Kenya Railways awarded the contract to the China Road and Bridge Corp. after a memorandum of understanding dating to 2011. Three years later, a Kenyan activist and the country’s leading bar association went to court to stop construction on the project, saying the Chinese company…

ADF STAFF Kenya’s Court of Appeals has ruled that a $3.2 billion contract for the country’s new Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) between Mombasa and Nairobi was illegally bid. Kenya Railways awarded the contract to the China Road and Bridge Corp. after a memorandum of understanding dating to 2011. Three years later, Kenyan civic activist Okiya Omtatah and the Law Society of Kenya, the country’s leading bar association, sued to stop construction on the project, saying the Chinese company won the project without going through a proper public bidding process. A court dismissed the case in 2014, and construction went ahead.…

ADF STAFF Burkina Faso’s military forces are successfully leading counterterror operations with greater frequency. Burkinabe troops in the five-nation G5 Sahel Joint Force, supported by a company of Soldiers from Niger, recently destroyed a terrorist base in the northern part of the country. Eight motorcycles, cellphones and other equipment were seized in the operation near a drilling zone outside Oursi. A gendarmerie unit — a military force with law enforcement duties — also “dismantled” a terrorist base near the eastern town of Tanwalbougou, and two terror suspects were arrested in a joint operation with Côte d’Ivoire’s forces to secure their…

ADF STAFF Nearly two years after it began, the Ebola outbreak that claimed more than 2,200 lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC’s) northeast was declared officially beaten on June 25. Health Minister Eteni Longondo pronounced victory over what he described as the “longest, most complex and deadliest” Ebola outbreak in the country’s history. An outbreak can be declared over when no new cases are reported for 42 days, or two 21-day transmission cycles. The triumph in the northeastern province of North Kivu was tempered by a fresh Ebola outbreak that appeared June 1 in the country’s northwest.…

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…