Browsing: International – Africa
A scramble for gold reserves dug up in illegal mines is fuelling violence by criminal gangs in parts of Nigeria, officials, expert reports and local residents say, with much of it smuggled to a Middle Eastern destination.Northwestern and central Nigerian states have long been terrorised by criminal gangs locally called “bandits” who raid villages, abduct residents and loot and burn homes.While the decades-long violence started as clashes between herders and farmers over limited grazing land and water resources exacerbated by climate change, the conflict has since morphed into organised crime — at a time when the price of the precious metal has been soaring.Nigeria is well known for its oil, yet also has significant gold deposits of some 754,000 ounces (21.37 tonnes), worth $1.4bn, accounting for 0.5% of global production, according to the 2023 Gold Mining Industry report.A recent wave of kidnappings, including hundreds of school children, brought the violence into fresh international focus.Local artisans extract gold for their livelihoods, attracting others from neighbouring countries, officials, including Kebbi State Governor Nasir Idris, say.The bandits tax the miners and demand a cut from the extracted ore as a levy to allow them access to the pits, villagers and experts say.”Gold has become an increasingly important revenue stream for armed bandit groups in north-west Nigeria since 2023,” said the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime in an October report.Nigeria’s political and business elite use mining companies as proxies to buy artisanal miners’ gold through middlemen.Most of the illegally-mined gold is smuggled out to a Middle East nation, from where it is laundered into the global supply chain in Europe, the US, Asia and South Africa.”This gold is almost entirely smuggled out of the country and shipped to a Middle East nation,” said a 2024 SwissAid report.Solid Minerals Minister Dele Alake said Nigerian gold often ends up in the Middle East “unlawfully”.Alake has previously said illegal miners sponsor “banditry and terrorism”.Nigeria’s counter-terrorism boss Major General Adamu Garba said recently that illegal mining “intersects with banditry, insurgency, arms trafficking and cross-border smuggling”.Against the backdrop of recent kidnappings, governors and traditional chiefs from 19 northern states recently dubbed illegal mining a “major contributory factor to the security crises”.They want a six-month suspension of mining to clean up the sector.But umbrella union the Nigerian Miners Association warns a blanket mining ban would disrupt locals’ livelihoods, “deepen poverty and increase insecurity”.Miners who resist paying levies come into the bandits’ firing line. In October bandits killed 16 miners and villagers while in April 19 people were killed in different parts of the region.Supported by bandits, some miners raid gold-rich villages, pushing out residents to access deposits, said Mamman Alassan, who fled his village in Niger’s Shiroro district three years ago following raids.”People usually protest and the miners respond by launching deadly raids to take over the area,” Alassan said after resettling in Minna city.The villages also sit on deposits of other minerals including tantalite, copper and lithium, in strong demand for its use in electric vehicles and clean energy tech.Intelligence sources say even licensed companies are forced to pay bandits to gain access to mining sites.Niger State governor Umar Bago recently questioned how miners can “freely access” sites in remote areas without getting attacked.Officials also blame the influx of foreigners for the worsening insecurity, with Kebbi state governor Idris singling out illegal miners from Mali, Chad and as far afield as Tanzania.The violence has been exacerbated by the increasing alliance between bandits and militants from the northeast who have in recent years established a strong presence in northwest and central regions, security officials and analysts say.Although they have no ideological leanings and are mainly motivated by financial gains, the bandits’ alliance with militants has exposed them to better arms, tactics and brutality, they say.INEFFECTIVE BANSAround 35% of Nigeria’s gold deposits lie beneath impoverished northwestern villages, according to Ismail Suleiman, who owns a mining company that extracts minerals across the northwest.Some state governments have at various times banned mining to curb banditry but the violence has continued unabated.In October, Niger state’s Bago announced an indefinite ban on mining, with plans to recruit 10,000 government-sponsored militia to protect Niger’s rural communities.In 2019, the federal government imposed a five-year mining ban in Zamfara state but lifted it in January, citing “improved security” despite increased killings and kidnappings there.Artisanal mining has continued on a much larger scale since the ban was lifted and violence has raged, said the miners’ union. 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23///*Guinea has world’s largest reserves of bauxiteVillagers living near mine report air, water pollutionFarmers say yields are lower and they are losing outTala Oury Sow has to wash her kitchen utensils and clothes in brown, murky water in the village of Koussadji in Guinea’s western Kindia region.”Do you think we can cook and wash with this? We have no other choice,” the 28-year-old farmer said, gesturing to the water she collected from a nearby river, 500 metres from her home in the Telimele prefecture of the West African nation.Sow blames the state of the water on the Indian mining company Ashapura Minechem, which opened a bauxite mine about 2km from Koussadji in 2019.Bauxite, the raw material in aluminium, is in high global demand because it plays a key role in enabling the clean energy transition, and Guinea holds the world’s largest reserves.But the people of Koussadji and nearby villages say they are not benefitting from the bauxite boom, but instead suffer from the environmental consequences of large-scale mining, including water and air pollution.Their complaints resonate across Africa, where many governments and activists are pushing for more domestic control — and economic benefits — of the critical minerals vital for the energy transition away from polluting fossil fuels.Aluminium is used in solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles, as well as energy-efficient appliances and insulation materials in greener buildings.”Look at this water, look at the gift they’ve given us. With this water, do you think life is possible?” said Sow, who grows rice, cassava, groundnut and cashews and blamed her falling crop yields on pollution.Ashapura did not respond to three emails requesting comment on the villagers’ allegations of pollution.The company did build a borehole in the nearby village of Bembou Silaty a year ago, but the water does not cover people’s needs, according to Souleymane Bah, a teacher from the village.Ashapura has also faced allegations of environmental pollution in India.In Bembou Silaty, Tokpa Fehand, a nurse working at the Poste de Sante health centre, said the village is adversely affected by mining activity, both in the dry and wet seasons.”There are respiratory illnesses from the dust, the village is surrounded by the mine, and the machinery hardly ever stops working,” he said.A 2023 community audit of the environmental and social impacts of mining in the nearby region of Boke linked bauxite mining to water pollution, a drop in agricultural productivity and a rise in air pollution.Oumar Totiya Barry, executive director of the independent Guinean Observatory for Mines and Metals, said the problems experienced in Bembou Silaty were typical.”Bauxite waste contains heavy metals and acid; in cases of pollution, it is sedimentation linked to drainage during the rainy season,” he said.JUST TRANSITION?Guinea exports some 3.7mn tons of bauxite per week and produced about 146mn tons last year.The country ships most of its exported bauxite to China.The military-led government, which took power in a 2021 coup, is pushing foreign mining companies to add more value to bauxite before shipping the ore overseas for processing.As part of this drive, it has revoked licences and pressed mining companies to build alumina refineries, joining countries from gold producer Mali to oil-rich Nigeria that are looking to boost domestic refining capacity in recent years.Despite a push by several African countries at November’s COP30 UN climate talks, the issue of a just transition for communities in resource-rich countries was not addressed in the final text.China and Russia, among others, opposed any explicit reference to minerals, participants said.”Talk of a just transition rings hollow so long as governments ignore the minerals required by the energy systems of the future,” said Antonio Hill, an advisor at the policy organisation Natural Resource Governance Institute.”By looking the other way, governments are feeding delay, forfeiting leadership and forsaking the chance to anchor equity and justice at the heart of the global energy transition,” he said in a statement after the talks. In the meantime, Guinea is taking unilateral action. Mamady Doumbouya, the general, has acted to force companies to add value to bauxite in Guinea.Mines Minister Bouna Sylla said in November the country would fast-track the development of alumina refineries and iron ore pellet plants to end decades of raw ore exports.NEW APPROACHBauxite mines, which involve surface level or “strip” mining, can contaminate rivers and streams by removing vegetation and facilitating erosion, Human Rights Watch said in a 2021 report on aluminium production and mining that also referenced Guinea.Barry said the noxious consequences of mining is a factor driving young Guineans to migrate, many opting for risky boat journeys to Spain’s Canary Islands.”(Guinea is) rich in resources, but has not managed to turn them into national wealth, rather into a tool used to consolidate state power,” he said, adding that mining revenues are used to pay policemen, soldiers and civil servants.He said legislation is needed to guarantee Guinean citizens a decent standard of living.The employment benefits are limited too, as many young people do not have the training needed to secure permanent jobs.The women of Allawalli, a farmers’ association in Bembou Silaty and Koussadji, said pollution from the nearby mines has decreased food production.Rice production in Telimele plunged by 90% between 2018 and 2022, according to data from Guinea’s national institute of statistics.Binta Boye, 35, grows rice, groundnuts and cassava in Bembou Silaty and is a member of Allawalli.”What I produced before was enough to feed my family. Now it’s not enough anymore. We’re in God’s hands, if we want this to change,” she said. Source link
A billboard depicting Guinea President Mamady Doumbouya, with the message “the best choice” written on it, is seen on an empty street after provisional results declared…
Abdoul Aziz Balde sobbed as he spoke of his son Idrissa, who left Guinea in search of a better future, but has not been heard from since capsizing off the Moroccan coast.”I know that the boat my son was on sank, but we haven’t been shown his body, so to say that the boy is dead, I just don’t know,” the desperate father said.Thousands of young undocumented migrants from Guinea have disappeared along migration routes in recent years, leaving their families in a state of uncertainty and helplessness.Although it affects families across west Africa, the problem is particularly bad in Guinea, which has become one of the main departure points for those heading to North Africa and Europe.One day they are in touch; the next seemingly gone forever.Some disappear after boarding overcrowded boats, others after crossing the desert with smugglers who have been known to abandon migrants.Still others have gone missing following police raids in North Africa, due to imprisonment in Libya or even once in Europe, disappearing voluntarily out of shame over having failed in their dream.Families are left to scour Facebook or watch macabre WhatsApp clips showing young people in morgues or corpses after shipwrecks.The Guinean Organisation for the Fight Against Irregular Migration (OGLMI) has pioneered a way to help families by collaborating with migrant aid associations around the world over the last year.The NGO estimates the number of missing Guineans to be in the thousands.”Out of 100 migrants who leave, at least 10 will never return,” said OGLMI executive director Elhadj Mohamed Diallo.”People have been missing for a long time but the issue has never been discussed at the civil society, government or international institution level,” he said.AFP accompanied Diallo as he navigated the streets of a Conakry suburb on his motorcycle to visit the parents of Idrissa, who disappeared more than a year ago.The Balde family lives in a house shared with other tenants where the poverty is striking.With every family, it is the same ritual when Diallo visits: Idrissa’s parents scrolled through WhatsApp to find the last virtual trace of their child.One of the last photos was a smiling selfie.”He left to save us, and to save his little sister. But God didn’t want it to be,” Abdoul Aziz Balde, a 62-year-old driver, said, breaking down in tears.Despite being bright at school, Idrissa — who would now be 29 years old — saw no opportunity in Guinea, a recurring theme among many young people.From 2023, he made three unsuccessful attempts to migrate to Europe, reaching as far as Morocco. Each time, his father tried to stop him.Last year his parents financed his master’s studies in Senegal, but he was lured by others who did manage to reach Europe and left for Morocco again.In August his father received a fateful phone call: “Are you Mr Balde? Do you have a son who is in Morocco?” the voice on the other end asked. “My deepest condolences. They boarded small boats… they drowned.”Balde said he was “devastated” and had to break the news to his wife. “The whole family wept,” he said.They were able to contact a young girl on the same boat but she had lost consciousness when they were hit by a wave and did not see what happened to Idrissa.”Is he dead? Is he not dead?” Balde asked, his voice filled with anguish.Between 2014 and 2025, at least 33,220 migrants died or went missing in the Mediterranean and 17,768 in Africa, according to the International Organisation for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project.However, the figures are likely underestimated. In 2024 alone, the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras recorded 10,457 people dead or missing at sea on the western European-Africa border.Guinean researcher Mahmoud Kaba is working on a study to shed light on “the large-scale phenomenon” of families who have lost loved ones during attempts to migrate from Guinea.Some “suffer strokes upon hearing the news, others experience insomnia and amnesia”, he told AFP.Families feel isolated due to increasingly restrictive border policies and controls in Europe, general indifference and the criminalisation of migrants.Abdoulaye Diallo, 67, told AFP he felt “abandoned”. His eldest son Abdou Karim, who would now be aged 25, went missing two years ago.”He stopped communicating with me in March 2023 which was unusual for him and that’s when the worry set in,” Diallo said.The family found some of Abdou’s last traces of life on Facebook.He had already left once, in 2018, barely aged 18, reaching Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, where he was imprisoned, but ended up back in Conakry.On a second attempt, while working in Rabat he told a friend he was leaving for Tangier and then on to Spain.Just east of Tangier, the massive Gourougou forest has become a base for thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa seeking to enter the nearby Spanish enclave of Melilla illegally.Moroccan authorities often carry out raids to dislodge them.”There is violence against migrants in Morocco, especially from the security forces. It’s a country where lives are senselessly lost,” Diallo said, breaking down in tears.One of Abdou’s brothers said he received information that he was in a detention centre in the Tangier region.Diallo said he tried to contact the authorities to inform the Guinean embassy in Morocco but had received no news.There is “no shame” in being the parents of a young migrant who has gone missing, he insisted.”It’s a wind that has swept through every home in Africa because of bad governance,” he said.OGLMI has set up WhatsApp groups in local languages to connect Guinean families, as well as a support group.Even when relatives try to report their child’s disappearance, there is often no follow-up, Diallo said.Guinea’s ruling junta, which took power in 2021, is reluctant to allow public discussion of illegal migration.”Admitting that we are losing our citizens at sea is also admitting a political failure and that we are not doing enough for our citizens,” Kaba, the researcher, said.But the head of the Directorate General for Guineans Living Abroad, Mamadou Saitiou Barry, said that the term “disappeared” should be used with “great caution”.He said there were “many situations” other than death that could cause a migrant to disappear.They include “those who have not succeeded and refuse to communicate, those who are hospitalised, those who are under arrest or detained,” he said.He added that Guinean authorities had helped families of shipwreck victims that they know about, often the few that gain media attention.”Families have the right to the truth and to file a complaint, the missing have the right to be searched for, and the deceased have the right to be buried with dignity,” Helena Maleno, founder of Caminando Fronteras, told AFP.”But getting states to recognise this is very complicated,” she said.After receiving a report of a disappearance, OGLMI contacts relatives and creates an identification file, including the migration route.The information is transmitted to associations in North Africa and Europe and to activists as far away as Mexico, Argentina and the US.The search might even involve visiting unmarked graves in the migrant sections of cemeteries or morgues.Some families do manage to trace their loved one, such as Tahibou Diallo, 58, who had no news of her son Thierno for two years.AFP went along with OGLMI’s Diallo when he met Tahibou for the first time.The mother became visibly distraught as she recounted how she had helped fund Thierno’s journey to Spain.”He told me he was going to study there,” she said, explaining he instead went to France then disappeared. In October, OGLMI was able to locate the young man, alive but homeless in the western city of Nantes.He was not doing well but his mother was able to speak to him and re-establish contact. However, other families who have sought the NGO’s help are still without news after more than a year. “These families must be helped to grieve,” Diallo said.”We must not forget all these missing people.” Source link
Residents inspect the damage after US forces had launched a strike against Islamic State militants in Nigeria at the request of Nigeria’s government, as US President…
In makeshift homes lacking even the most basic necessities surrounded by piles of rubbish and flanked by dirt roads, thousands of Somalis in Yemen live in poverty in Aden's ‘Little Mogadishu’.Yemen is not a destination in itself for migrants but a way station for those leaving East Africa in the hopes of reaching the Gulf states and working in construction or as domestic staff.But with security along its borders tight, many struggle to make it out of Yemen.During the day, the men fan out across the city and line the roads looking for work in the de facto capital of government-controlled Yemen, where more than a decade of war has led to mass unemployment and food insecurity.To make ends meet, many search for odd jobs or scavenge rubbish heaps, looking for any food that can be salvaged to feed themselves and their families.’Some days we eat, some days it's up to God. That's life,’ said Abdullah Omar, a 29-year-old Somali father of four in Aden.Over a year ago, Omar decided to take his chances, shelling out $500 to traffickers to board a boat with his family in hopes of escaping Somalia's instability and finding a better life abroad.But in Yemen, it has only been misery.To survive, Omar washed cars, making the equivalent of just a few dollars a day. After years working in construction in Mogadishu, Omar had hoped to find better conditions and pay in Yemen — where he had passed through as a teenager en route to Saudi Arabia.But that was before years of civil war killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, destroyed vast amounts of infrastructure and left the country effectively partitioned between the Houthi fighters and Yemen's internationally recognised government.’Here I have nothing,’ he said, while explaining his decision to enrol in a UN programme that paved the way for his repatriation to Somalia.’There's no work, no money and no schooling for the children.’Despite the poor conditions roughly 17,000 Africans arrived in Yemen in October, mostly from nearby Djibouti and Somalia, an increase of 99% from the month prior, according to the UN.Somalis make up about 63% of the 61,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers in Yemen, UN data shows.Across Aden, where unemployment is already staggeringly high among Yemenis, African migrants are hard-pressed to gain a foothold.Nearly 19.5mn people in Yemen — more than half its population — are in need of humanitarian aid, including 4.8mn internally displaced people, according to early 2025 UN data.Somalia remains ravaged by its own civil war, with the insurgents of Al-Shabaab still in control of vast swathes of the country.But relative peace in the capital Mogadishu in recent years has brought a degree of stability and allowed a lucrative construction boom in parts of the city.According to a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) survey, 56% of Somalis who are repatriated cited a ‘lack of income opportunities’ in Yemen as their main reason for returning home.’Many refugees want to go back to Somalia, but they can't afford smugglers or plane tickets,’ said Oweis al-Azzan, who oversees the head of the UN's voluntary return programme, which helps migrants.The programme provides families with free transportation and cash to help ease their transition once they are back home.The UN has repatriated more than 500 Somalis so far this year and plans three more flights by the end of the year carrying around 450 more people.Among those set to return is Somali contractor Ahmed Abu Bakr Marzouk, who came to Yemen 25 years ago, where he married twice and started a family.For years he prospered, sending money home regularly and financing the building of two homes in Mogadishu.Then came the war.’For the past three or four years, there's been no work,’ said the 58-year-old.With no relief in sight in Yemen, Marzouk said conditions in Somalia were now more favourable. ‘My brothers work in farming there. If peace returns, I'll come back,’ he told AFP.’If not, I won't.’ Source link
A scarcity of nuts has put Ivory Coast’s shea sellers under pressure. With nuts scarce as the shea season draws to a close, buyer Souleymane Sangare’s warehouses in Ivory Coast’s northern city of Korhogo are empty.In a country where shea production is modest and largely based in the north, sellers made up for the shortfall by sourcing from Mali and Burkina Faso.But last year, the neighbouring countries — among the world’s top shea crop producers — halted shea nut exports to boost local production.The shea tree is a symbol of the dry African savannah. Its fruit contains a nut that women collect and sell raw, or process into butter for skincare or the food industry.”Since they suspended exports, it has been hard to get nuts. And on top of that, this year Ivorian production has not been profitable enough,” said Sangare, a buyer at Korhogo market and vice-president of the Ivorian Shea Network.Gone are the mountains of nuts in his two warehouses — only a few sacks remain this year.”I normally have between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of nuts per season. This year, I haven’t even managed 500 tons, two months after the start of the season” from mid-August to October, he said.In January, Ivory Coast also suspended exports of its nuts to secure supply for its own industry. Women rely on making a living from shea at the Chigata co-operative near…
A physiotherapist guides Patrick Ndagije, 13, from Bishushe in Rutshuru territory, on how to position himself with his prosthesis at the Shirika la Umoja centre in…
Elephants drink at a watering hole at Hwange National Park, where communities are helping to track the animals to avoid human-wildlife conflict. In the sun-scorched lands bordering Zimbabwe’s largest wildlife sanctuary, Takesure Moyo pedals through his village each morning on a mission to help his community coexist with the elephants and predators that roam nearby.The 49-year-old is among several locals trained as community monitors under an initiative by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Zimbabwe’s National Parks and Wildlife Authority (Zimparks).Equipped with a mobile phone, he uses an app to log sightings, spoor and incidents — data that enables authorities to respond swiftly and issue alerts to prevent potential confrontation with dangerous animals, including ones straying from the nearby Hwange National Park.”We have always lived with wild animals around us, but our responses to human-wildlife conflict were rather individual and unco-ordinated,” said Moyo, speaking in vernacular Ndebele.”The initiative has helped the community become more knowledgeable about animal behaviour and ultimately minimise conflict.”Wild animals have killed around 300 people in Zimbabwe over the past five years, according to Zimparks, with crops and livestock also suffering heavy losses. Nearly 70% of reported incidents occur in communities bordering national parks such as Hwange, it says.A few years ago, Moyo lost six cattle to lions. It prompted him to become involved in the project to protect his community.Equipped with a bicycle provided by IFAW, he patrols the area around his village daily, sending updates to Zimparks with a focus on “problem animals” like elephants and lions.His input complements data received by satellite from GPS collars fitted to 16 elephants in the area, both feeding a mobile application called EarthRanger that allows real-time monitoring and rapid response.Zimbabwe is home to nearly 100,000 elephants, the world’s second-largest population of savannah elephants after neighbouring Botswana, according to a 2022 aerial survey conducted under the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.”During the dry season, elephants sometimes come for water at the nearby dam, which is the source of water for our communal gardens,” Moyo said. “And during the cropping season, they can come to eat our crops.”The EarthRanger app — used in 80 countries, according to its developers — is “highly effective,” Zimparks acting public relations manager, Tamirirashe Mudzingwa, told AFP.As a live early warning system, it gives communities time to protect themselves, their livestock and property from approaching wildlife, he said.A separate project collects data from collars fitted to some elephants that have been rescued, rehabilitated and reintroduced to free-roaming herds by the Wild Is Life organisation.At a monitoring centre, technical officer Simbarashe Mupanhwa pointed to multi-coloured lines on his computer screen that tracked the movements of Samson, a seven-year-old elephant back in the bush after being saved when he was abandoned at birth.”Other than helping monitor the elephants’ movements, the application is also able to track the organisation’s rangers and vehicles, helping ensure that if there are any incidents of poaching, reaction is as swift as possible,” Mupanhwa said.The satellite telemetry “offers critical spatial insights into habitat use, movement patterns, and the identification of frequently utilised areas, including ecological corridors and dispersal zones,” said Phillip Kuvawoga, IFAW’s conservation senior director.Community-based conservation has become a common ground for IFAW and Zimparks, which have different philosophies over Zimbabwe’s ballooning elephant population.The government argues the country cannot sustain so many of the animals and has lobbied for the lifting of a global ban on the trade in tusks, saying its ivory stockpile is worth millions of dollars that could be used to bolster ranger welfare and conservation.Zimparks, a government agency, supports “consumptive tourism” such as safari hunting, including of elephants, while IFAW promotes photographic safaris.”The collaboration embodies a pragmatic agreement: conservation efforts must be inclusive, science-based, and adaptable,” said Alleta Nyahuye, country director of IFAW, which flags as its mission the ideal of “helping animals and people to thrive together”.In villages like Moyo’s, the impact is tangible.”It’s not just about protecting animals,” Moyo said. “It’s about protecting our way of life, too.” Source link
Belete Melke, 25, a farmer who was caught in crossfire during the last rainy season in an area about six hours from Bahir Dar, inside the…