After reaching a historic high in 2024, irregular migration to Spain fell sharply in 2025. Official data show a decline of more than 40% compared with the previous year, driven largely by a collapse in arrivals via the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands. Spanish...
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How the US Intervention in Venezuela is Reviving Global South Fears of Power Politics
The US raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is resonating across Africa as part of a broader pattern of great‑power behavior that many on the continent see as a return to old hierarchies, rather than an isolated episode in Latin America. The...
Burkina Faso Faces New Security Tensions Amid Coup Allegations
Burkina Faso experienced a sudden spike in political and security tension overnight in early January, with coordinated public mobilizations in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso following warnings of a possible attempt to destabilize the country’s transitional...
U.S. Immigration Policy and the Changing Landscape of Africa-U.S. Travel
As the United States prepares to implement a new round of immigration and visa policy changes in 2026, the effects are being felt across Africa and parts of the Middle East. What began as a technical overhaul of screening and enforcement procedures has evolved into a...
The UAE’s Growing Role in African Conflict Zones
Saudi–Emirati tensions over Yemen open a wider question: to what extent is the UAE using proxy actors, media leverage, and selective alliances to reshape crisis zones from Libya and Sudan to the Western Sahara file, often in ways that cut across Algerian and broader...
Sahel: Niger Declares General Mobilization Amid Escalating Jihadist Violence
Niger’s military-led authorities have announced a nationwide general mobilization that allows for the requisitioning of people, property, and services as part of their campaign against armed jihadist groups operating across the country. The decision comes amid...
Mauritania: Water Scarcity Sparks Protests in Chami
Residents of Chami, a mining hub in western Mauritania, have taken to the streets to protest severe and prolonged...
Mauritania Battles Dual Outbreaks Amid Sahel’s Shifting Climate
Mauritania is contending with concurrent outbreaks of diphtheria and Rift Valley fever that have left at least 36...
Madagascar: “Mamy” Ravatomanga, billionaire, vice-king, and protester target
A profile by Olivier Vallée and Nicolas Beau [MondAfrique]: Maminiaina Ravatomanga, “Mamy,” is a wealthy businessman...
Sahel: Why the G5 Sahel force remains completely ineffective
Three years ago West African nations launched a joint force touted as a giant's stride in the fight against Islamist...
Burkina Faso: Christian Kabore “wins” presidential election
Burkina Faso's top court on Friday certified that President Roch Marc Christian Kabore had been elected for a second...
Sahel: Boko Haram raids village in southern Niger, kills 27
Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist group on Monday claimed responsibility for the weekend attack on a village in...
Sahel: An army Colonel heads Mali’s legislative body
Mali's interim legislature on Saturday elected Colonel Malick Diaw, a member of the military junta that toppled...
Mali’s in big trouble: A legislative body appointed by a junta-backed government
Mali's interim government on Thursday announced the composition of a new legislative body for the West African...
Sahel: UK deploys hundreds of troops to war-torn Mali
Britain is deploying 300 troops to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali to help strengthen security and human rights...
Sahel: New terror attack in La Tapoa, Niger
Two forestry workers were killed and two soldiers were reported missing after an attack early Friday in southwestern...
Sahel: Fragile calm in northern Mali town of Menaka
After years of violence and lawlessness during which the Malian town of Menaka changed hands between rebels and...
Sahel: Military posts in northern Mali attacked
Suspected militants attacked several Malian and foreign military bases with mortars and rockets in the north of the...
Sahel: Several killed in ethnic violence in Chad’s Kabbia region
At least 22 people have been killed in southern Chad in the latest instance of deadly ethnic violence between nomadic...
Sahel: 42 human rights demonstrators arrests in Nouakchott
Police have arrested 42 people in Mauritania, rights groups and police said Sunday, after a protest demanding justice...
Mighty France feels assaulted by Turkey and Russia in Africa
President Emmanuel Macron accused Russia and Turkey of seeking to promote anti-French sentiment in Africa by funding ...
Security crisis dominates campaigning for Burkina Faso’s presidential election
Burkina Faso will vote in a general election Sunday in the shadow of a growing jihadist insurgency, with President...
Health: Shortly after the UN declared polio eradicated in Africa, cases emerge in Chad
Dozens of polio cases have been detected in Chad just months after the UN declared the disease eradicated in Africa,...
Sahel: French forces intensify their operations in the Sahel, report killing Al Qaeda’s Ba Ag Moussa
France announced Friday that its anti-jihadist force in Mali had killed the military commander of an Al-Qaeda-aligned...
Sahel: Mali politics sinking to new low with military’s attempt at power grab
A leading opposition group on Wednesday warned of a military stranglehold on Mali's post-coup government and called...
Sahel: Former president of Mali, Amadou Toumani Toure dies in Bamako
Mali's former president, Amadou Toumani Toure, who steered the Sahel nation to democracy and led it for a decade...
Sahel: Gunmen ambush bus in Mali, kill eight people
Gunmen have killed eight people in central Mali, a local official and security ministry staffer said Wednesday, in...
Sahel: France drags European troops into a conflict they cannot win
Inside a military base in northern Mali, a concrete bollard emblazoned with French, Estonian and Swedish flags marks a...
Sahel: Series of grisly decapitations in southern Mali
Security officers have discovered a fresh decapitated body in the southern Malian town of Fana, a local official said...
Burkina Faso president launches campaign for second term
Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore launched his re-election campaign on Thursday, promising "peace" in...
Niger: US national kidnapped in Tahoua
An American citizen has been kidnapped by gunmen in southern Niger, a senior official told AFP on Tuesday. The...
Sahel: As expected, France opposes dialogue in the Sahel
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, on a trip to Mali on Monday, ruled out dialogue with jihadists driving an...
Sahel: UN chief signals potential for dialogue with insurgents in the Sahel, but Paris won’t allow it
Editor's commentary by Arezki Daoud: France won’t let it happen Perhaps this is another opportunity for the world and...
The Sahara’s 2 billion trees
At first glance the apparently barren expanses of the Sahel and Sahara deserts feature little greenery, but detailed...
Sahel: Another massacre in Mali, 12 civilian killed in Mopti
Twelve civilians were killed in volatile central Mali on Tuesday morning in addition to 12 soldiers who died in a twin...
Mali: Attack on base in Mopti leaves dozen troops dead
Twelve Malian soldiers were killed in attacks on their base in the volatile centre of the country, the army said...
Infighting inside the Sahel’s Jihadi movement
To the uninitiated, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) group may be pursuing the same long-term goal of spreading...
Sahel: Ecowas lifts sanctions on Mali, interim government releases detainees
Eleven political and military figures arrested during the coup in Mali in August have been released, including former...
Sahel: French hostage and Mali opposition leader freed
A French aid worker kidnapped in Mali in 2016 and one of the country's leading opposition politicians have been...
Sahel: Mali braces for potential release of hostages by Jihadis
[Photo of French hostage Sophie Petronin] - A second batch of jihadists has been freed in Mali, sources said Tuesday,...
Sahel: Upsurge of malaria cases in Mali
Malaria cases in northern Mali have spiked, according to medical workers, claiming 23 lives in the often lawless...
Power politics in the Sahel: Profile of a Sufi leader
Cattle herders, traders and heads of state are among the people who have sought the ear of the sharif of Nioro, one of...
Niger frees campaigners detained in protests over military contracts
Niger's judicial system has ordered the release of three campaigners held for more than six months after staging...
Mali: Moctar Ouane appointed Interim Prime Minister
Mali's interim president Bah Ndaw on Sunday named former Malian foreign minister Moctar Ouane as prime minister,...
Mali’s neighbors want a civilian Prime Minister, pledge to keep sanctions otherwise
West African states will uphold sanctions on Mali until it appoints a civilian prime minister, the leader of the...
Sahel: Boko Haram ambushes Chad soldiers, kills ten
Ten Chadian soldiers were killed while attacking a base of the Boko Haram Islamist group in the Lake Chad region, the...
Mali: Military junta announces transitional leaders, recalls retired colonel as Interim President
Bamako, Sept 21, 2020 - Dubbed "the big one" for his imposing height, Mali's future interim president Bah Ndaw has...
Sahel: French and US forces assess their cooperation on the Sahel as Trump remains uncommitted
The senior US commander for Africa met France's top general on Thursday to discuss the fight against militant groups...
Niger: Daesh says it killed French aid workers in Koure on 9 August
The Islamic State extremist group on Thursday claimed the killing in August of six French aid workers and their two...