First Independent Mena Newspaper
The French Navy has intercepted nearly 10 tonnes of cocaine aboard a stateless fishing vessel off the coast of West Africa, marking one of the year’s largest drug busts and highlighting the region’s growing role as a key transshipment route in the global cocaine trade. The 9.6-tonne haul — valued at roughly $600 million — […]
West Africa faces a deepening humanitarian crisis as the fallout from armed conflict in the Central Sahel region continues to spill into neighboring Gulf of Guinea countries, according to a new UNICEF report. In the first half of 2025, escalating violence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger has displaced more than 515,000 people into coastal […]
West Africa is becoming a central node in global cocaine trafficking, as powerful criminal groups from the Western Balkans expand their footprint across the region, a new report has revealed. Once operating largely behind the scenes, Albanian- and Slavic-speaking networks have now entrenched themselves in countries like Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Cape Verde. These […]
Northern Togo is facing a mounting threat from jihadist militants infiltrating from neighboring Burkina Faso, with the Togolese government maintaining strict silence as the situation deteriorates. Foreign Minister Robert Dussey recently acknowledged that over 62 people have been killed by militants since January — more than double last year’s toll — in one of the […]
Cameroon and Nigeria announced they have opted to peacefully settle their decades-long border disputes by 2025 and would thus no longer require the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to consider the case and issue a ruling to settle the matter. Rather, the two nations said, joint delegations will validate a demarcation plan on site to […]
“If we don’t act now,” the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in the Sahel will “become a problem for the world,” a senior UNHCR official has warned, echoing a senior UNICEF official that has condemned a “distressing” 70% rise in grave violence against children in several strife-torn countries in the region plagued by jihadists and […]
The West African sub-region annually loses $26 billion to illegal fishing and illicit trade in marine resources, a senior Ghanian official has warned, echoing a recent report by an independent intergovernmental body that globally, nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history, and species’ extinction is accelerating at an alarming rate. In an address […]
Despite setbacks from military coups in Mali and Niger, the European Union is planning to launch a new military-civilian mission in Africa in the fall, whose aim is to prevent instability triggered by jihadi groups, a German newspaper has reported. EU member states have agreed to launch the mission in the Gulf of Guinea in […]
A naval fleet of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA-N) arrived for a five-day visit in Nigeria on Sunday (2 July) for a rare visit by the Chinese military to Africa’s Atlantic coast, reinforcing speculation that the Gulf of Guinea could offer a base for Beijing. As the destroyer Nanning and an accompanying frigate, long with […]
Five people were killed Sunday in a landslide in the popular Commune of Yopougon of the Ivorian economic capital Abidjan washed by heavy rains. “On Sunday June 11 at 03H11 mn, the 4th Yopougon brigade company was alerted about a landslide in Yopougon’s millionaire district, at the height of Saint Louis junior secondary school in […]