ADF

Chinese-owned ZamFresh has become one of the largest fishing companies in southern Africa since it arrived in Zambia in 2018. The tilapia it pulls from Lake Kariba near Jeremiah Island is sold in landlocked Zambia and Zimbabwe and exported globally. This is profitable for ZamFresh, but it has meant poverty, hunger and despair for the 500 artisanal fishermen on Jeremiah Island who say they were evicted to make room for the company. ZamFresh owns more than 300 large fish cages around the island, which is on the Zambian side of Lake Kariba, the world’s largest artificial lake and water reservoir…

Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters continue to defect and join the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), raising questions as to whether their movements are due to minor infighting or a more significant erosion of faith inside the rebel group. Abubakr Hamouda Dahloub, RSF intelligence chief in North Kordofan State, defected in August with 200 fighters in Omdurman. The men brought their weapons and equipment and said they were ready for combat alongside the SAF and its allied forces, the Sudan News Agency reported. Dahloub said he and his fighters realized “their mistake in following the project being implemented by the…

The sound of gunfire and explosions began about 1 a.m. on August 29, setting off a night of intense fighting at Air Base 101, a military installation at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niger’s capital. The third attack of the year on Niamey, after one in January by an Islamic State group affiliate and another in June by al-Qaida’s Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, was different. This one came from within the Army, and unlike Niger’s conflict with terrorists, it was quelled by Russia’s Africa Corps mercenaries. According to Héni Nsaibia, West Africa senior analyst at the Armed Conflict Location and…

Nigeria’s northern states are experiencing a surge in terrorism spreading from the Sahel as strained diplomatic relations with Niger’s ruling junta complicates cross-border security. Tensions between the two countries began after the 2023 coup that overthrew Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum. The situation worsened when Niger joined Burkina Faso and Mali in the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES) and withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 2025. It later exited the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), which confronts terrorism in the Lake Chad Basin. After withdrawing from ECOWAS, Niger and its AES allies have repeatedly…

Annual cocaine seizures in West Africa have surged from two metric tons in 2018 to more than 30 metric tons in 2025, according to a report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). Cocaine trafficking was the fastest-growing criminal market in West Africa between 2019 and 2025. According to The Economist, the volume of cocaine seized in the region each year increased by 50%. At least one-third of the cocaine exported to Europe transits the region. Some analysts believe that about 30% of all cocaine bound for Europe last year passed through West Africa. “Critically, West Africa is…

Two years after canceling a peace agreement with Tuareg separatists, Mali’s ruling junta is no closer to restoring security to the country, according to analysts. Instead, the junta appears to have undermined its own counterterrorism efforts by prompting the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) to align with terrorists. “They [the Malian government] decided the factions in the north were terrorists equal to JNIM [Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin] and would be fought the same way,” Wassim Nasr, senior researcher at The Soufan Center, told ADF. “At the end of the day, this policy led to a real coalition between the [FLA] rebels…

A militia that was trained and armed by Russian mercenaries in the Central African Republic is turning on the CAR government and wreaking havoc. The Azande Ani Kpi Gbe (AAKG) took up arms in 2023 in the southeast of CAR near the border with South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The group billed itself as a defender of the ethnically Azandé people who live in the tri-border area. Clashing mostly with ethnic Fulani fighters, the group won control over the town of Bambouti, giving it access to gold mines and cross-border weapons trafficking. The CAR government, which…

As African nations seek to disrupt terror organizations, they increasingly face the challenge of dismantling terrorists’ multifaceted financial systems. This is particularly true in East Africa, where al-Shabaab and Islamic State-Somalia (IS-S) use extortion, smuggling, money laundering and illicit taxes to collect hundreds of millions of dollars. Al-Shabaab’s tentacles spread throughout Somalia’s economy, allowing the terrorist group to raise an estimated $200 million a year to finance its operations. IS-S raises at least $1.2 million a year through its criminal activities and shares some of these funds with other Islamic State groups through its al-Karrar office, a regional command center…

The Nigerian Navy and Federal Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture (FDFA) arrested 33 people, including three Chinese nationals, in late August as part of a three-day initiative known as Exercise Coastal Grip II and Operation Abo Eja. It was not immediately clear what the Chinese nationals did on the vessels, but Chinese fishing captains have committed illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing in the Gulf of Guinea for decades. Also arrested were two Ghanaians and 28 Nigerians. Chinese captains routinely hire African workers. The operation involved naval ships, helicopters, Special Boat Service personnel and maritime surveillance assets, and was coordinated…

Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa took a firm stance on the deceptive recruiting practices that have led dozens of young Ghanaians to die for Russia on battlefields in Ukraine. He first raised the issue in February, saying that 272 Ghanaians had fought on Russia’s side of the war. But he brought updated numbers to an August 17 meeting in Moscow with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov — seven more Ghanaians had been killed in the fighting, bringing the total to 62, and 15 were missing. Ablakwa emerged from the meeting and held a news conference with Russian media, reporting…