Africa

In an X Space hosted by New Lines Magazine, journalists and development specialists discussed the latest investigation by HumAngle and New Lines, highlighting the role of investigative journalism in strengthening human rights.

New Lines Magazine has recently hosted a virtual discussion in collaboration with HumAngle to discuss the role of investigative journalism in strengthening human rights. The discussion, which was held on X (formerly Twitter), was an offshoot of both organisations’ recent joint investigation on the missing people’s problem in Nigeria’s northeast.

Après deux mois de bras de fer avec les autorités nigériennes issues du putsch du 26 juillet, que Paris s’obstine à ne pas reconnaitre, Emmanuel Macron a enfin annoncé un calendrier de retrait pour les 1500 militaires français basés au Niger, où ils étaient restés présents dans un cadre juridique inédit depuis la fin officielle de l’opération Barkhane. L’association Survie, qui n’a eu de cesse d’alerter sur l’effet contre-productif et vain de la «guerre contre le terrorisme» à la française, rappelle que l’enjeu est plus large : c’est l’ensemble des militaires français présents sur le continent (bases permanentes, forces «de partenariat» au Tchad, coopérants militaires) que l’Élysée doit rapatrier en France.

As terrorist groups continue destabilizing the Sahel region in sub-Saharan Africa, violence has spilled over into coastal West African states previously unaffected, including Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, and Ghana.

The Wagner Group is active in several sub-Saharan countries, where its role as a guarantor of regime security has granted it outsized access to and influence within the region.

Africa today consists of 56 different experiences in nation-building with some remarkable successes and many inevitable failures. In many African countries a new player has entered the game: a younger generation that is better educated, more ambitious and, at the same time, less gullible than its ancestors in the 19th century who looked away while imperial powers carved the golden goose.

On 30 August, elite troops slaughtered over 50 civilians planning to protest perceived foreign interference in the eastern DR Congo, three months ahead of elections. The government has asked the UN for an “accelerated” withdrawal. Crisis Group experts Richard Moncrieff and Onesphore Sematumba explain the stakes.

Prodigious rainfall and the failure of long-deteriorated earthen dams caused a rush of waters through Derna, in Libya, on September 11. Thousands of residents died, infrastructure was destroyed, and buildings ended up in the Mediterranean. Failure to protect residents, maintain the dams, and sustain the lives of all Libyans point to societal collapse.

Les combattants du Cadre stratégique permanent, (CSP), une coalition de groupes armés du Nord malien, se sont retirés de la ville de Léré (Nord) par crainte d’éventuels bombardements de l’armée malienne, ont confirmé plusieurs sources civiles locales ainsi qu’un porte-parole de cette coalition.

Des milliers de migrants, en majorité des ressortissants subsahariens, campent au nord de Sfax, en Tunisie, dans l’attente d’une traversée vers l’Italie, après avoir été chassés par les forces de sécurité, selon des organisations humanitaires et des témoignages à l’AFP.

An ailing economy and tough border measures elsewhere along Africa’s north coast are to blame

THE ITALIAN island of Lampedusa is home to around 6,000 people. In the past week most of the 14,000 migrants who reached Italy have arrived on its shores. Hundreds more have died trying to make it there by sea in the past year, including a newborn baby whose body was recovered on September 16th. The following day Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, visited the island with Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister. Mrs von der Leyen promised a “co-ordinated response” by the EU to the surge in arrivals on Lampedusa.

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.