West Africa Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. In October 2016, a 31-year-old Moroccan fishmonger named Mohsen Fikri got into an altercation with police in the northern town of al-Hoceima. The police had confiscated Fikri’s swordfish, and when he tried to retrieve it from the back of a garbage truck, he was crushed to death. The incident sparked a wave of protests known as al-Hirak al-Shaabi, or the Popular Movement, that was intended to draw attention to the lack of development and general marginalization of Morocco’s northern […]

Since it was formally established in 2002, the International Criminal Court has been far more active in Africa than in any other region of the world. The court currently has investigations open in nine countries on the continent, and is conducting “preliminary examinations” in three others. As demonstrated this month when the ICC overturned its 2016 conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba, the former vice president of Democratic Republic of the Congo, the court’s activities can have major political consequences in all these places. Yet when it comes to transitional justice, the ICC is hardly the only game in town in Africa. […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the high-profile political crises over Italy’s refusal to offer safe haven for boats carrying rescued asylum-seekers, and the Trump administration’s family separation policy for asylum-seekers at the southern border. For the Report, Joe Penney talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about the U.S. military’s growing presence in West Africa, the secrecy that often obscures it, and what that means for the region’s fragile democracies.If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The embrace lasted for only a few seconds, but each one seemed to be more awkward than the last. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, the former vice president who is now a rebel leader, met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this week for the first time in nearly two years. At one point, appearing before the media, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed attempted to bring the two men together for a hug. “Peace is coming to our […]

Recent controversies involving the U.S. military in Africa highlight how the Pentagon uses ambiguous language and outright secrecy to obscure its activities. At times, this has involved subverting democratic processes in partner countries, an approach that runs counter to years of diplomatic engagement. AGADEZ, Niger—In early May, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the head of U.S. Africa Command, addressed a group of journalists gathered in a staid, gray room at the Pentagon. The press conference had been called to disclose the main findings of the Defense Department’s investigation of an ambush seven months earlier in the West African nation of Niger. […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. This week’s vote to determine who would host the World Cup in 2026 was a major letdown for Morocco, made worse by a crushing loss to Iran in its opening match of the tournament Friday. The country had hoped to become just the second in Africa to secure hosting rights, after South Africa in 2010, but instead it lost decisively to the joint bid from the United States, Canada and Mexico. The final vote tally by the members of […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Four months after Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced he would resign, and two months after Abiy Ahmed was sworn in as his replacement, the pace of change in Ethiopia seems only to quicken. This week saw a dramatic shift in the government’s stance toward Eritrea, its neighbor and longtime foe, as well as significant political, economic and security reforms at home. On Tuesday, the government announced that it was finally ready to implement the terms of a peace […]

The quiet, behind-the-scenes preparations for Cote d’Ivoire’s next presidential election in 2020 were given a jolt this week by a man many expected would play only a supporting role in the process. In an interview published Sunday by the magazine Jeune Afrique, President Alassane Ouattara, who is nearing the end of his second term, said the West African nation’s new constitution would enable him to run twice more, in 2020 and again in 2025. Cote d’Ivoire limits presidents to two terms, and Ouattara had previously said numerous times that he would abide by the restriction. But by claiming that the […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. For well over a year, activists have been buzzing about the potential for a new tribunal in the Central African Republic to foster a tradition of domestic accountability and deter fighting of the sort that has rocked the chronically unstable nation since 2012. The court’s prosecutor, the Congolese military magistrate Toussaint Muntazini Mukimapa, arrived in the country in February 2017, and hopes were high that he would be able to move fast in building cases. Yet as recently as […]