Burkina Faso

ADF STAFF The W National Park is an 8,000-square-kilometer nature preserve that straddles the borders of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. It is home to an abundance of wildlife, including aardvark, baboon, endangered cheetah, African bush…

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.…

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…

ADF STAFF Civilians in the Sahel’s tri-border region are caught in the crosshairs of violence perpetrated by rival terrorist groups. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), which is affiliated with al-Qaida, and the Islamic State…

ADF STAFF Hawa left her Burkina Faso home due to terrorist attacks five years ago and went to a town in the nation’s Sahel region. There, she depended on humanitarian aid to feed her family and picked vegetation from the bush to sell and…

ADF STAFF One quarter of all deaths related to terrorism globally in 2023 occurred in Burkina Faso making it the most severely impacted country in the world. Nearly 2,000 people were killed in 258 terror incidents, a rise of 68 percent…

ADF STAFF A dengue fever outbreak killed nearly 600 people in Burkina Faso in October 2023. A stream of disinformation followed. Social media users, including many believed to be backed by the Russian government, began attacking work…

ADF STAFF Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa is intensifying, and experts say the central Sahel region has replaced the Middle East as its global epicenter. Worldwide deaths from terrorism increased by 22% in 2023 to 8,352 — the most since…

ADF STAFF Nigeriens flooded the streets of their capital, Niamey, to celebrate when their military-led government announced its exit from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in January. But all is not well in the…

ADF STAFF Anesthesiologist Dr. Arouna Louré was seeing patients when armed soldiers suddenly burst into the operating room of his hospital in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou. “They made me understand they could make me leave using the…