Central Africa Archive

More than 11 years after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Dominic Ongwen’s arrest, and nearly two years after he was captured and transferred to The Hague, his prosecution finally began in December. Ongwen, a former senior commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), faces 70 counts, including charges of murder, enslavement, rape and torture. He allegedly committed or oversaw these atrocities as part of the Ugandan rebel militia’s bloody campaign against the people of northern Uganda’s Acholiland that originally began in 1987. Though the LRA remains active in pockets of central Africa, it was driven from Uganda […]

According to Human Rights Watch, a new rebel group in the Central African Republic—known as Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation—has killed at least 50 people and displaced over 17,000 in the northwest of the country since late 2015. In an email interview, Igor Acko, a program specialist for the United States Institute for Peace based in Bangui, discusses the security situation in CAR. WPR: What are the main rebel groups in the Central African Republic, and who makes up their support bases? Igor Acko: The armed groups in the Central African Republic fall under two main categories: the Seleka and the Anti-Balaka. […]

“It’s the same fight, the same stakes,” French President Francois Hollande said of the battle against extremism in France and Africa while meeting with Malian troops in the northern city of Gao last week. “The terrorists who attack our land, who commit acts on our soil, are allied with those who are in the Levant, in Iraq and Syria, but here as well, in the Sahel.” Just days later, a suicide attack killed dozens at an army base there. Hollande was in Mali for the final Africa-France Summit of his presidency, which took place in the capital, Bamako, amid tight […]