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. The attack was depressingly familiar, as was the government’s apparent inability to provide a clear explanation of what exactly happened. On Monday evening, militants from the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram stormed a girls’ school in the town of Dapchi, in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Yobe, and kidnapped dozens of students. The exact number of those missing was still unclear Friday, but it could be more than 100. The incident immediately evoked the abduction in 2014 of hundreds of […]

On Monday, a spokesman for a civil society group in Chad called Iyina became the latest government critic to be detained by security forces. According to police, Alain Kembah Didah was caught with a bottle of gasoline in his hand, preparing to burn a tire as part of an anti-government protest. Didah has disputed this account, but that didn’t stop Chadian authorities from taking him into custody and, according to Amnesty International, beating him to the point where he could barely stand. In Chadian Arabic, the name Iyina means “We’re fed up.” Its members aren’t the only ones who’ve been […]

On Jan. 31, India signed a 20-year agreement with the island nation of the Seychelles to build an airstrip and jetty for the Indian navy. The pact, which was in the offing for years, reflects greater competition between India and China to establish naval positions in the Indian Ocean. In an email interview, James Holmes, the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Navy War College, discusses the deal and India’s wider strategy to keep tabs on China in what New Delhi sees as its “rightful nautical preserve.” WPR: How does India’s port deal with the Seychelles […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The drama surrounding South Africa’s leadership transition has dragged out long enough to acquire its own snappy name: Zexit. That’s according to the BBC, which noted this week that the early departure of President Jacob Zuma, who has already been replaced as head of the ruling African National Congress by his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, is now being discussed as though it’s inevitable. This week, that meant a series of canceled meetings and other engagements as Zuma and Ramaphosa negotiated […]

Michel Thierry Atangana Abega spent 17 years in detention in Cameroon, locked in a tiny underground cell. He was alone for nearly all that time, denied access to lawyers and doctors and dependent on charity to supplement meager, state-issued rations. His primary connection to the outside world came from a radio that carried local stations and, sometimes, Radio France Internationale and the BBC. Born in Cameroon in 1964, Atangana studied in France and became a naturalized French citizen in 1988. He embarked on a career as a financial engineer and, in 1994, traveled back to Cameroon to develop road projects. […]

On Jan. 22, a court in the Central African Republic convicted and sentenced a former warlord and leader of the anti-Balaka militia, Rodrigue Ngaibona, to life in prison. Human rights groups described it as a first in the war-torn nation and a “decisive first step” in delivering justice for crimes committed during the violence that has gripped the country for the past five years. In an email interview, Elise Keppler, the associate director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, and Lewis Mudge, a senior researcher in the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch focusing on the Central […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in for a second term more than two months ago, but tensions around his re-election are clearly still fresh in Kenya. This week, the decision by opposition leader Raila Odinga to follow through on threats to stage a shadow inauguration brought those tensions to the forefront, and the government’s response raised questions about Kenyatta’s commitment to civil liberties. Thousands of Odinga supporters attended Tuesday’s ceremony, where Odinga, holding a Bible, declared himself “the […]

2017 was a year of political transition in Africa, beginning with the flight into exile of Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh and ending with a military intervention in Zimbabwe to remove Robert Mugabe from power, which he had held for 37 years. The continent still has numerous heads of state who seem inclined to stay in office for many years to come, if not for life. But several of them are facing new pressures that may make their continued rule untenable. WPR has compiled 10 articles that examine those pressures and look at which of Africa’s strongmen are most vulnerable. Purchase […]