ADF

ADF STAFF Months after the United Nations Security Council voted to lift a weapons embargo on Somalia, experts are weighing the impact of the move. For more than 30 years, Somalia was under the embargo that was created to prevent warlords and militias from arming themselves during the nation’s disastrous civil war. It was amended several times over the years in response to the worsening al-Shabaab crisis. In the final 10 years of the embargo, Somalia needed Security Council authorization to buy or receive certain high-caliber weapons, equipment and vehicles. Officials complained that this put them at a disadvantage to…

ADF STAFF The Ghana Armed Forces in March participated in Exercise Sea Lion 2024, a timely weeklong maritime security exercise designed to sharpen the nation’s maritime security skills. Ghana’s Chief of the Defence Staff, Lt. Gen. Thomas Oppong-Peprah, said in opening remarks that the exercise aims to build the interoperability for future operations against ongoing security threats such as piracy and terrorism. “The recent spate of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea and other transnational crimes at sea has made it imperative for the Ghana Navy to test its operational readiness and resilience in confronting these criminals,” Peprah said. There…

ADF STAFF Sierra Leonean President Julius Maadi Bio in early April declared a national emergency over rampant drug abuse, particularly of kush, a powerful, synthetic psychoactive drug that has killed hundreds of users. Known for its long-lasting euphoric effects, kush is traditionally made from marijuana, herbs, disinfectants and fentanyl. But users in Sierra Leone have begun mixing those ingredients with ground human bones, which are said to make the drug more powerful due to their high sulfur content. Experts do not believe this ingredient has a significant effect on the drug potency. Also known as “the zombie drug,” kush can…

ADF STAFF Intensifying gun battles and explosions drove Prudent Kahindo and her three children from their home in February. When they arrived at an informal camp for displaced people outside the city of Goma, they found their lives were no less threatened. “Life is extremely complicated here, we have no tarpaulin and no food,” she told The New Humanitarian magazine. “We ask for help because people here risk dying from hunger.” For years, Goma, the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has attracted the displaced in search of safety and humanitarian aid. Makeshift displacement camps already…

ADF STAFF The Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 disrupted grain shipments to countries across Africa. In response, Russia has begun shipping free grain to six African countries, but those shipments come with strings attached. According to Zimbabwean economist Godfrey Kanyenze, Russia is exploiting the suffering of African citizens for its own benefit. Kanyenze is the founding director of Zimbabwe’s Labor and Economic Research Institute. “It’s strategic in the sense that Russia realizes these countries are in need, and basically takes advantage of that specific need,” Kanyenze told CNN. “It’s geopolitics at play. The major string is to control…

ADF STAFF A few minutes after recess ended, gunmen emerged from the surrounding forest and began firing their weapons near the school in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I heard explosions and other loud noises,” a 12-year-old student identified as Bahati told the nongovernmental organization Save the Children. “We fled, without even thinking. Everyone fled into another direction.” In the chaos that followed, people from the community escaped to Goma. “People walked for two days,” Bahati said. “People were separated from their families. Children without parents and parents without their children.” The attack on Bahati’s school was part…

ADF STAFF Since Burkina Faso’s ruling junta came to power in September 2022, the leadership increasingly has relied on the poorly trained and lightly armed Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP) to serve as front-line forces to battle extremists. Experts believe the strategy has led to thousands of civilian deaths, driven attacks on communities providing volunteers and shredded the country’s social fabric. “The use of VDPs is a double-edged sword,” analysts with the Crisis Group wrote recently. While the volunteers help extend the reach of the Burkinabe armed forces’ counterinsurgency operations, they also suffer heavy casualties and have…

ADF STAFF Increasing attacks by Somali pirates are exacerbating global shipping and fueling maritime insecurity around East Africa. After a six-year lull in major pirate attacks, there have been more than 20 attempted hijackings since November, Reuters reported. The raids are heightening risks and adding insurance costs onto shipping companies also contending with repeated attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militia in the Red Sea and other regional waters. Two Somali gang members told Reuters they were taking advantage of the Houthi distraction to get back into piracy. “They took this chance because the international naval forces that operate off the coast of…

ADF STAFF Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Gwabin Musa, has fond memories of his childhood in Sokoto. “Growing up as a kid in Nigeria, it was so peaceful,” he told the BBC during a video interview released on March 28. “As junior officers, I remember we would travel all through the night, no harm. So, it is a rude shock what is going on.” The rude shock for all Nigerians is the scourge of complex, overlapping security challenges in every region of Africa’s most populous country — problems that are Musa’s job to solve. Nigeria is faced with…

ADF STAFF Nahom Halefom, 13, was playing outside with two friends near the town of Queshet in central Tigray. His mother was watching. “I took my eyes off him for a moment. Then I heard the explosion,” she told The Ethiopian Reporter newspaper for an article published on March 23. Everyone in the area rushed to the scene, but none dared enter what likely was a minefield. Neighbors ran to find veterans whose experience in the two-year Tigrayan war included navigating minefields. “He was in agony, unconscious,” Nahom’s mother said. “All I could do was stand and watch and wait.”…