For more than a week, Islamic State-linked militants have laid siege to Palma, a coastal town in northern Mozambique near multibillion-dollar natural gas projects. It is the most severe escalation of a jihadist insurgency that began in 2017 and is expected to exacerbate an already grave humanitarian crisis.

Nigeria is once again facing a challenge that has grown all too familiar: children in peril. Kidnappings gained international prominence in 2014, when Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from their school in Chibok. Many more children have been kidnapped since then—and the trend could get even worse.