In early May, a high-speed boat pulled alongside the Rio Mitong, a Panama-flagged cargo vessel, just off the coast of Equatorial Guinea. Using ladders to board the ship, a group of assailants kidnapped two crew members, taking them back to the shore, where they subsequently held them for ransom. Another ship was reportedly attacked that same night, elsewhere in the Gulf of Guinea. These attacks are just two among many recent incidents in this vast and strategically significant body of water, where armed robbery, piracy and kidnappings at sea have escalated in recent years. Though piracy overall has decreased globally, [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The president of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, was set to sail through his August reelection and secure a second term running the multilateral lender. Now his future is less clear after the United States—the institution’s second-largest shareholder—rejected the findings of an inquiry that exonerated Adesina of allegations of corruption and favoritism. The bank’s Board of Governors has now agreed to launch its own independent investigation. Beyond raising questions about Adesina’s future, the new investigation creates turmoil at a time when [...]
As Mozambique enters the third month of its lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19, fighting between government troops and a shadowy Islamist militia has escalated significantly in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a global monitoring group, insurgents have stepped up attacks in 2020, with more than 100 “violent events” this year, the precise term ACLED uses based on its methodology—an increase of 300 percent over the same period last year. In roughly 90 of those incidents, militants attacked civilians, resulting in more than 200 reported fatalities, including one [...]
