Africa Heartbeat

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Photos by AFP/GETTY IMAGES When Fredie Blom was born, the automobile was in its infancy, the first airplane was less than a year old and World War I was in the future. More than 116 years later, Blom still got…

ADF STAFF When legendary Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta made his way into what is now Somalia between 1330 and 1332, he took note of the extraordinary woven cloth he found in the Horn of Africa. In those days, Somalia was a major…

ADF STAFF Sometimes, scenes of serenity and calm can be found close to anxiety and unrest. This young Congolese boy would seem to have found just such a spot. He rested along a road connecting the small town of Rudaya, Democratic…

ADF STAFF The Nile River, the world’s longest, meanders northward through the eastern half of Africa, bringing power, agriculture and, at times, recreation to the millions of people who live at or near its banks. A little recreation and…

Senegal’s southern Casamance region has long been isolated from the more populous north by a geographic peculiarity: The Gambia, and the namesake river that runs most of its length. In January 2019, the presidents of both nations…

Story and photo by REUTERS Desire Koffi often walks through Koumassi, a working class district of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, to buy old mobile phones from people for 500 CFA francs ($0.87) a pair. Back home, the 24-year-old artist…