ADF

ADF STAFF The United Nations’ Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide is sounding the alarm over “atrocity crimes” in Ethiopia and warning of the risk of widening ethnically based violence. Alice Wairimu Nderitu listed incidents of targeted killings of families, rape used as a weapon of war and the forced displacement of communities. She said the risk factors for a genocide are present in the country one year after a peace deal was signed to end the war in Tigray. “The suffering of innocent civilians should never be accepted as inevitable,” Nderitu said. “Rather, it must reinforce our commitment…

ADF STAFF Peter Kiano, a math professor from South Sudan, had just finished eating breakfast at Khartoum’s Souq Abu Hamama when fighters with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) arrived. Moments later, with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) nearby, the RSF fighters told everyone to lie on the floor. Kiano chose to run. An RSF fighter shot him twice in the head as he fled, killing him. Kiano was one of thousands of Sudanese civilians caught up in the relentless violence between the SAF led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto leader, and his RSF rival known as Hemedti.…

ADF STAFF The sound of gunfire and land-shaking explosions are routinely heard and felt in Timbuktu, the northern Malian city that was once a bustling hub for international tourists drawn to its historic mosques and mausoleums. Months of violence there prompted Alan Kasujja, who hosts the BBC’s Africa Daily podcast, in August to describe Timbuktu as a “city under siege.” Timbuktu has experienced more than a decade of war after a 2012 insurrection led by Tuareg rebels. For nearly a year, the city was controlled by extremist groups who enforced strict religious law and destroyed many of the city’s historic…

ADF STAFF The Sahel and West Africa have seen their share of crowds waving Russian flags, chanting, and holding posters with pro-Russian and anti-French sentiments. When a few dozen youths held a “freedom rally” in Diabene community park in Takoradi, Ghana, on August 13, it quickly became clear that the gathering had been coordinated to raise the visibility of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group. Ghanaian authorities arrested five people and charged them with “planning to overthrow the government and destabilizing the peace.” Among them was Michael Asiedu, a 25-year-old blogger with 1,500 followers who posts pro-Russian content on Facebook. He discussed…

ADF STAFF The recent military coup in Niger has not made life easier for Nigeriens or people in the wider region. Economic sanctions closed the bustling border between Niger and Nigeria, halting roughly $1.3 billion worth of annual trade. Food prices have risen sharply in Niger’s capital, Niamey. “Frankly, I’ve felt it in my pocket. And right now, where we are, we’re all stocking up,” shopper Abou Kane told Reuters, lamenting that a sack of rice had risen more than $25 since the coup. The wave of coups that has swept through Africa is disrupting economic progress, stifling investment, trade…

ADF STAFF Senegalese authorities in February seized 805 kilograms of cocaine in waters about 530 kilometers off the coast of Dakar from a Gambian fishing boat. The seizure resulted in seven arrests. The Gambian vessel was intercepted by Senegalese officers through collaboration with the Atlantic Analysis and Operations Center, the French Air Force and the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. According to Gambian newspaper The Point, the arrests and seizure were made after a seven-month investigation into an Albanian drug trafficking organization based in Spain that has access to a large maritime infrastructure in Brazil. From there, vessels loaded with cocaine sail to the…

ADF STAFF Kibsa Ouedraogo is chief of Noaka, a community in north-central Burkina Faso that is surrounded by artisanal gold mines that have become magnets for terrorists. “The terrorists hear that this site or that one is thriving with gold, and then they target those sites — they can kill everyone or they take control and take taxes,” Kibsa told Financial Times. “To me, it’s not about religion — it’s a kind of mafia.” Kibsa’s story has become a common one among communities in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. The region is peppered with gold mines — both official and…

ADF STAFF Shouting and gunfire filled the air on an August night in the central Malian farming village of Bujo. Mostly unarmed, Bujo’s residents had to flee to survive the sudden attack. By morning, 17 villagers were dead. Terrorists torched their homes, stole their livestock and looted their stores. Survivors buried victims in a communal graveyard, then walked 15 kilometers to the town of Bandiagara. The terrorist attack was one of more than a dozen assaults that killed at least 100 people and displaced tens of thousands in central Mali in August. “We are really completely lost,” Wilas Bujo, a farmer…

ADF STAFF In response to brutal attacks against civilians by militia members, some of Sudan’s pro-democracy groups who once protested the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have rallied to support it. In the six months since fighting erupted between the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the militia controlled by a general known as Hemedti has been accused of a host of atrocities including rape, summary executions and burning entire communities to the ground. Now some groups are taking sides and making clear who they blame for the atrocities. “We believe that this war was caused by a conflict of…

ADF STAFF More than 100 Malian Armed Forces (FAMA) vehicles deployed in a slow-moving convoy from the city of Gao on October 2. Their ultimate destination: the town of Kidal, a Tuareg stronghold in the north that has been controlled by a coalition of former rebels since 2013. The two sides renewed hostilities in August after the collapse of the 2015 Algiers peace accord, which had not been fully implemented but granted some regional autonomy to Tuareg groups. Fighting and rhetoric have since escalated. “The process of irreversible occupation of Malian lands, which is part of Mali’s unity, continues and…