ADF

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.”…

ADF STAFF Nigerian authorities are working to contain a thriving illicit weapons market in Lagos as local manufacturers of illegal guns continuously hone their trade. Local illegal gun factories are known for producing imitation weapons that look like the originals. In October 2023, authorities in Lagos busted a blacksmith’s factory that was a cover for manufacturing illegal firearms. Authorities seized single- and double-barreled guns, pistols, cartridges and drilling machines during the raid, which ended in the arrests of a notorious gang leader and more than 30 suspects. “See how perfect this fabricated AK-47 is. It’s unbelievable,” Nigeria Police Force spokesperson…

ADF STAFF It was after midnight on December 8, 2023, when armed rebels from Cameroon’s English-speaking separatist movement raided the border community of Belegete, firing guns and kicking in doors. Muwah Augustine was visiting his parents when men broke into their house. “I was asleep when the terror group arrived in the night, shooting sporadically at people,” Augustine told HumAngle. “They collected our phones, broke them and gave us the worst beating of our lives.” Three days later, Augustine still was searching for his parents, who vanished during the mayhem. Belegete is a border community without a checkpoint where people…

ADF STAFF New reporting shows how North Korean diplomats stationed in Southern Africa are smuggling large volumes of rhino horn out of the region to buyers in China and other countries. The millions of dollars in proceeds help North Korea evade international sanctions and fund its nuclear weapons program. The illegal trade in wildlife parts is just one strand in the larger web of criminal and illicit activities by North Korea. Historically, North Korea has used its diplomats to conceal money laundering and the smuggling of alcohol, drugs, gold, ivory and tobacco. The money flows into the hands of the…

ADF STAFF Piracy is making a resurgence in the western Indian Ocean, and the region is rife with other sea crimes such as illegal fishing, drug smuggling, and human and weapons trafficking. Against that backdrop, the second edition of the India-Mozambique-Tanzania Trilateral Exercise (IMT TRILAT 24) was held in late March in the southern Mozambican port of Maputo; the northern Mozambican port of Nacala; and Zanzibar, the island off mainland Tanzania. The weeklong exercise enhanced the nations’ maritime security collaboration and increased their understanding of the scope of their maritime capabilities and shared objectives. The first IMT TRILAT was held in…

ADF STAFF Violence between rival communities has a long history in South Sudan, but the past year has seen a worrying rise in attacks that observers fear could become a wider crisis. More than 150 people died and 165 were injured as a string of deadly clashes swept across South Sudan between January 28 and February 6. The last quarter of 2023 saw a 35% surge in the number of civilians affected by violence compared to the previous quarter, as the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reported that 862 people were either killed, injured, abducted or “subjected to…

ADF STAFF Amid desperate warnings of impending famine across Sudan, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues to use hunger as a weapon of war. The yearlong conflict has caused the deaths of more than 12,000 people and the displacement of an estimated 8.3 million. According to the United Nations, 5 million people in Sudan are at risk of “catastrophic” hunger, and more than 18 million are dealing with acute levels of hunger. The RSF has routinely used food and hunger as tools to control civilians. Now it is using those tools to force men and boys in Al Jazira…