Special Reports

She was, by almost all accounts, a rather wonderful woman - smart, helpful, and engaging - and a familiar presence behind the old-fashioned wooden reception counter in the Central Hotel's spacious lobby in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. "We made a really good connection. She was very attentive, and was doing her job very well. One government minister I knew was ready to offer her a job," said a European official who sometimes stayed at the hotel in order to meet the many Soma

For Ibrahim Hussein, it was the final blow. When the Kenyan government ordered the closure of the Dadaab refugee camp following the al-Shabaab terrorist attack in Garissa in April, Hussein gathered his courage and went to the UN refugee repatriation office to ask to be resettled back home in Somalia. After years of living in the largest refugee complex in the world, Dadaab had become an open-air prison to him, with little more to offer than a daily dose of anxiety. “I came he

For Ibrahim Hussein, it was the final blow. When the Kenyan government ordered the closure of the Dadaab refugee camp following the al-Shabaab terrorist attack in Garissa in April, Hussein gathered his courage and went to the UN refugee repatriation office to ask to be resettled back home in Somalia. After years of living in the largest refugee complex in the world, Dadaab had become an open-air prison to him, with little more to offer than a daily dose of anxiety. “I came he

Ebola-hit Guinea and Sierra Leone saw a spike in new cases last week, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, dashing hopes that the deadly outbreak was petering out. The seven days ending Sunday "saw the highest weekly total of confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease for over a month," the UN health body said in its latest update. A full 35 new cases were reported during the week in Guinea and Sierra Leone, up from just nine a week earlier. According to the latest figur

Last month, a senior African Union (AU) official claimed international news media such as CNN and BBC had “overlooked Africa’s role” in combating the recent Ebola crisis in West Africa. Olawale Maiyegun, the AU’s social affairs director, also said Africans “are better placed to fight infectious diseases in their continent than outsiders.” At first glance, these statements may seem peculiar to international observers. After all, wasn’t it the inability of West African nations—

Welcome to the May issue of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project’s (ACLED) Conflict Trends report. Each month, ACLED researchers gather, analyse and publish data on political vio- lence in Africa in realtime. Weekly updates to realtime conflict event data are published through our research partners at Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) and also on the ACLED website. This month’s issue focuses on the declining activi- ty of Boko Haram in Nigeria

For more than a decade, Americans have watched terrorism and sectarian violence threaten the stability of the Middle East and our own nation’s security. Yet while our immediate attention is rightly focused on the Middle East, we cannot take our eyes off another region where violent extremists are wreaking havoc: Africa. Although African extremist groups like Boko Haram and al-Shabab appear primarily focused on their local struggles, they could pose a much more direct threat t

With more than 20 countries possessing bountiful oil and mineral deposits, Africa is home to more resource-rich states than any other region in the world. Yet, living conditions for most citizens remain dismal as a result of inequitable distribution of resource revenues. Sub-Saharan Africa’s top five petroleum producers rank among the bottom third in the world in terms of child mortality. The continent’s two largest producers—Angola and Nigeria—rank among the bottom ten count

Kenya appears to have softened its stance on the imminent closure of a camp hosting more than a third of a million Somali refugees, weeks after the deputy president, reacting to the massacre at Garissa University, announced it would happen within three months. “While we are committed to the return of the refugees, you will not see us holding them by the head and tail and throwing them across the border,” said Ali Bunow Korane, who chairs Kenya’s Refugee Affairs Commission. Ko