Central Africa Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. More than 100 days after leaving Nigeria to treat an undisclosed medical condition in the U.K., Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari returned to Abuja over the weekend. Supporters hailed his arrival, and Buhari seemed eager to move past the uncertainty and tension provoked by his absence, criticizing “political mischief-makers” while appealing to a sense of national unity. As Alex Thurston wrote for WPR toward the beginning of Buhari’s trip—his second long-term stay in London this year—the immediate complications for Nigeria […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The Waterloo cemetery on the outskirts of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, the final resting place for many people killed during West Africa’s 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, was again being put to use this week as the government struggled to cope with mudslides and flooding that left hundreds dead. Video footage of Monday’s disaster showed torrents of mud and water rushing down one of the area’s many hills. The mudslide occurred as many people were sleeping, and it “is thought to […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. South African President Jacob Zuma survived another no-confidence vote in parliament this week. But for the first time the process was conducted via secret ballot, and the result highlighted dissension within the ranks of the African National Congress, or ANC, as the party prepares to choose a standard-bearer for elections in 2019. A total of 177 lawmakers voted in favor of the no-confidence motion, including around 30 ANC members—what Reuters described as “an unprecedented revolt.” Zuma has been dogged […]

Does the United Nations have to go back to square one in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Mounting violence in the DRC threatens to put one of the organization’s longest-running large-scale peacekeeping operations in an unsustainable position. At a time when U.N. officials and diplomats in New York are talking about limiting blue helmet operations in the face of U.S. budget cuts, the organization faces a security test in the DRC that could highlight why it really needs more military resources, not fewer. There have been U.N. peacekeepers in the DRC since 1999. The first international personnel were deployed to […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The final week of campaigning before nationwide elections in Kenya began with two incidents that amplified fears of political violence. First, last weekend, a man armed with a machete managed to break into the home of Deputy President William Ruto, wounding one police officer and then fatally shooting another with a stolen rifle. It took 18 hours for security forces to kill him. Then, authorities announced Monday that a senior official with Kenya’s election commission had been found dead. […]