Accra Initiative: seven West African states discuss spillover of terrorism from Sahel

Seven West African coastal states held last week their first major talks — within the so-called Accra Initiative — on boosting cooperation against jihadist violence spilling over from the Sahel. During the meeting in the Ghanian capital, leaders from Gulf of Guinea neighbor countries Benin, Ghana, Côte D’Ivoire and Togo discussed ways of preventing the […]

Bouteflika Likely to Win Despite Public Dissent

Despite unprecedented opposition protests, Algeria is likely to elect the incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika for his fourth term as the country’s fifth president being in office since 1999. Mr Bouteflika previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1963 to 1979, presided over the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002, and ended emergency rule […]

Mali: armed group kills at least 40 at wedding ceremony amid escalating violence

Dozens of guests, many of them young people, at a wedding ceremony have been killed by a group of unidentified armed men in an attack on a village in central Mali that has been struggling with violence from extremist groups for over a decade. Unidentified armed men cut the throats of approximately 40 people in […]