ADF

The people posing as job recruiters promised lucrative work in Canada, but their victims soon found themselves held against their will in Côte d’Ivoire and forced to lure new victims into the trap. In all, 33 people from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo were tricked into paying as much as $9,000 each to fake recruiters in a human trafficking operation that investigators described as a pyramid scheme. Victims were held in abusive conditions in Abidjan, where their traffickers forced them to post pictures of themselves on social media accounts in luxury hotels and similar glamorous settings to lure others…

The Ghana Armed Forces on May 8 received 14 Puma M36 Mk3 Armored Personnel Carriers from the United States government amid rising security threats from the Sahel. The mine-resistant, ambush-protected carriers, or APCs, were delivered to the Burma Camp in Accra and are worth more than $6 million. Edward Omane Boamah, Ghana’s minister for defense, was grateful for the donation, which he called “generous and strategic.” “This occasion is not just a symbol of the enduring partnership between our two countries,” Boamah said in a report by Ghanaian news website MyJoyOnline. “It is a tangible expression of our shared commitment…

The trial of six people, including a member of a notorious Mexican drug cartel, in a Kenyan court is highlighting the changing nature and corrosive influence of the illicit drug business in East Africa. Kenyan authorities arrested the six last year during a raid on a makeshift methamphetamine lab in the countryside near Namanga, a community on the border with Tanzania. Among those arrested were three Kenyans, two Nigerians and Israel Alvarado, who law enforcement authorities say is a member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most dangerous criminal organizations. The Namanga lab was the first confirmed…

Effective communication is key to ensuring the success of military training events such as Obangame Express 2025, the largest multinational maritime exercise in Western and Central Africa. The annual exercise aims to build cooperation among nations to fight sea crimes such as illegal fishing, piracy and trafficking. This year’s two-week exercise, which ended May 16, included visit, board, search and seizure training in Senegal, where participants overcame language barriers to complete tasks. Gambian Sailors were lauded for their communications skills after stepping in as English, French and Portuguese interpreters while participants practiced tactical ship entries and learned search and evidence-handling…

Throughout West Africa it has become difficult to avoid the blitz of viral videos, memes and social media posts glorifying the military rulers of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Experts say that there has been a calculated campaign to elevate the stature of one man in particular: Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, the youngest leader on the continent, who seized power by overthrowing Burkina Faso’s previous military junta in 2022. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” host Martine Dennis said in the May 13 episode of her Africa Here & Now podcast. “Ibrahim Traoré seems to be online, everywhere, all the time.…

In preparing for a raid on a notorious illegal mining settlement known as Abrewa Ni Nkrane, members of the Ghana Armed Forces and the Forestry Commission expected to find about 2,000 illegal miners. At sunrise on April 15, they discovered a much bigger operation. The sprawling hideout near the Subri Forest Reserve was home to more than 10,000 people, including foreign nationals from Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria. “The sheer number of people we are going to arrest would not even fit in our vehicles, and there is no jail facility that can post them all,” Western Regional…

Nearly three decades after Egypt launched its first satellite into orbit, the African Space Agency opened its doors in Cairo with a mission to expand the continent’s role in space. Based at the Egyptian Space City, the agency, known as AfSA, is tasked with coordinating the work of Africa’s various space programs as well as ensuring access to space-derived data, information, services, and products. The agency was established by the African Union (AU) in 2018. “Space activities across the continent have been very fragmented,” Meshack Kinyua, the African Union’s space applications training officer said. “The [agency] … places all African…

Unmanned surface vehicles are becoming increasingly popular in the fight against sea crimes, including illegal fishing. Such vehicles, also known as USVs or maritime drones, can be used to detect suspicious activities without endangering personnel and can be equipped with artificial intelligence autonomy systems to gather, process and transmit information. Their enhanced communication systems enable seamless data sharing with command centers and improve situational awareness through persistent surveillance and reconnaissance missions. According to Engineering News, cutting-edge USVs include sensor suites with cameras, sonar, radar and acoustic systems to give operators a complete picture of the environment. They may include military-grade sensors…

As militaries work to improve security in Africa, one area is a persistent weak spot: borders. Often porous, poorly demarcated and neglected by the state, they are a haven for crime and terrorism. During the African Land Forces Summit (ALFS) held in Accra, Ghana, in April, commanders from across the continent called for better cooperation and innovative approaches to secure shared borders. “Most countries are faced with the same problem, which is the porosity of our borders,” Brig. Gen. K.T. Sesay, chief of Army staff of Sierra Leone told ADF. “It’s quite challenging, and we have land where there are…

Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) used drones loaded with explosives when they killed 12 Cameroonian Soldiers and wounded 10 more in a March attack on a military base in the northeastern Nigerian town of Wulgo. The Soldiers were part of the Multinational Joint Task Force working to combat terrorism in the area. Supply chains for such weaponry are limited in the Sahel, but terror groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group often use military weaponry seized during attacks on African militaries to perpetrate further violence. This is according to a new report by…