Africa

With a wave of coups in former French colonies in Africa, France is finding it can no longer take its military role on the continent for granted.

There have been growing protests against France’s presence in Africa, where it has previously flexed its military might. French troops have recently been expelled from Niger and Mali and others are considering scrapping independence-era deals that led to at least 30 French direct military interventions between 1964 and 1995.

The military junta in Mali ordered the United Nations peacekeeping mission MINUSMA to leave the country earlier this year. The peacekeepers’ convoys have been hit by multiple improvised explosive devices.

Before United Nations peacekeepers hurriedly abandoned their base in Kidal in northern Mali on Tuesday, they made a costly call: with insurgents stationed nearby, they destroyed sensitive equipment to avoid it falling into the wrong hands, the U.N. said.

Mali’s army said Tuesday it carried out airstrikes on what it called terrorist targets in the rebel stronghold of Kidal, where witnesses and separatists said civilians, including children, died in the attack.

The armed forces said on social media that the strikes “neutralized several terrorist pickup trucks” at a military camp evacuated by U.N. peacekeepers last week in the strategic northern town.

Le ministre russe de la Défense et son homologue burkinabè Kassoum Coulibaly, ont convenu mardi à Moscou de renforcer les liens entre leurs pays dans le domaine de la défense.

Selon une étude de chercheurs en sécurité, 180 personnes ont été enlevées au Mali et au Burkina Faso dans la première moitié de l’année.

Patrick se souvient encore de tous les détails. C’était le 15 juin dernier. Il était assis dans un bus qui roulait sur la route nationale 15, dans le centre du Mali. Tout d’un coup, le conducteur arrête son véhicule : des terroristes djihadistes lui bloquent la route.

Entre six et huit personnes, dont plusieurs enfants, ont été tuées mardi (07.11) par des frappes dans le nord du Mali.

” C’est à 7h30 ce matin qu’on a entendu la première frappe de drone. Nous avons appris qu’il y a eu huit morts parmi lesquels on dénombre des enfants”, confie un habitant de Kidal qui a requis l’anonymat pour des raisons de sécurité.

On 26 July, high-ranking Nigerien officers announced on national television that they had overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum, who was democratically elected in 2021. In this Q&A, Crisis Group analysts lay out the reasons for the coup as well as the stakes going forward.

What’s new? As jihadist groups in the Sahel move southward, Côte d’Ivoire has beefed up its security deployment in the north and rolled out a range of social projects to alleviate poverty and youth unemployment. Militant violence has subsided since a series of attacks in the north between 2020 and 2021.

Insurgents have established bases in an important nature reserve spanning parts of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. They pose a growing danger to local ecosystems and people living around the park. The three countries need to collaborate more closely to keep the threat at bay.