Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 12/20/2024

News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East

Last week’s links are here.

Sahel and West Africa

The Economic Community of West African States has created a special tribunal to judge crimes from the era of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh (in power 1994-2017).

A “frugal budget” for Senegal.

Hannah Armstrong for Mixed Migration Centre: “Weathering Change: The Gendered Impacts of Climate and Environmental Changes on Pastoralist Migration in Northern Senegal.”

Mali’s junta has renamed various streets and monuments, in a complex gesture of political symbolism.

The Burkinabè government issued five new decrees pertaining to regulating the gold sector.

Yinka Adegoke and Alexander Onukwue at Semafor: “Nigerians Struggle with the Ongoing Impact of Inflation, Devaluation.”

Reuters: “Shell Invests in Nigeria's Bonga North Deep-Water Project.”

Fidelis Mbah at Al Jazeera: “In Nigeria’s Crude Capital, a Plan to Win the War against Oil Theft.”

Nathaniel Powell at World Politics Review: “Chad’s Deby Is Taking a Big Risk in Kicking France Out.”

Chad releases 23 associates of slain opposition politician Yaya Dillo.

North Africa

At Jeune Afrique, Fadwa Islah reports on the extradition of accused drug traffickers from Morocco to the United States, as well as the background to a major bust this past April.

At Nawaat, Rihab Boukhayatia chronicles the “forgotten Tunisian women” involved with prostitution and substance abuse.

A Tunisian NGO organized a sit-in “to denounce the criminalization of aiding migrants” - but turnout was low.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov visited Algeria and met President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Thursday.

Algerian authorities summoned the French ambassador after accusations surfaced in the media that French intelligence had sought to recruit former Algerian jihadists to destabilize Algeria.

Anna Guellali at DAWN: “No Safe Haven: Algeria’s Transnational Repression of Dissidents.”

United Nations Support Mission in Libya: “Report of the Secretary-General.”

The World Bank: “Libya's Economic Outlook: Pathways to Sustainable Growth and Increased Productivity.”

Greater Horn of Africa

Reade Levinson and David Lewis at Reuters: “Dozens of UAE Flights Head to Airstrip UN Says Supplies Arms to Sudan Rebels.” See also Levinson’s thread here.

Simon Marks and Mohammed Alamin for Bloomberg: “Russian Guns, Iranian Drones Are Fueling Sudan’s Brutal Civil War

Garowe Online: “Somalia: Jubaland President Chairs Cabinet Meeting after Raskamboni Victory.”

Isaac Kaledzi for DW:

The authorities in Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland say their agreement to grant landlocked Ethiopia access to the sea in exchange for recognition remains intact despite Somalia and Ethiopia's deal to end the feud it caused.

[…]

"The relationship between Somalia and Ethiopia, that is their business. We are minding our own business," Somaliland's special envoy to the African Union, Abdulahi Mohammud, told DW. "Any country that tries to interfere in our own internal affairs with regards to [the] case of Somalia vis a vis Ethiopia, that are two different issues that concerns the two countries, not us."

Joshua Hoffman at CNN: “The $1 Billion ‘Electricity Highway’ That Allows Ethiopia and Kenya to Share Their Power.”

Naila Aroni at Africa Is a Country: “Kenya’s labor export model treats citizens as commodities, exploiting workers for remittances while neglecting domestic job creation.”

FEWS Net on drought and hunger in Ethiopia:

In the pastoral south and southeast, area-level Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes are expected, with a portion of the population in Emergency (IPC Phase 4). The population in need of food assistance is expected to rise sharply as food and income from livestock – most households’ primary asset – are expected to decline due to the impacts of atypically dry weather. Households in this region have had only a few seasons to recover from the historic 2020-2023 drought, and below-average herd sizes persist. Furthermore, inadequate rainfall in late 2024 and early 2025 is expected to diminish livestock health, saleability, and milk productivity. The southern border of Somali and Oromia regions is of highest concern.

Mashriq

Yaniv Kubovich at Haaretz: “‘No Civilians. Everyone's a Terrorist': IDF Soldiers Expose Arbitrary Killings and Rampant Lawlessness in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor.”

Sam Dagher at Bloomberg: “After 150,000 People Vanished, Syrians Hunt for Assad’s Victims.”

International Crisis Group: “Regional Perspectives on the House of Assad’s Fall.”

Muaz Al Abdullah and Valentin d’Hauthuille for ACLED: “Syria: Israeli Airstrikes Reach an All-Time High after Assad Regime Falls.”

At New Left Review, Cihan Tuğal reflects on internal Turkish debates about Turkey’s role in Syria, and about the limits of what can be known at present:

The opposition…views the fall of Assad as the outcome of an American game in which Erdoğan and the jihadis were pawns. Whereas Erdoğanists anticipate a democratic and Islamic Syria under Turkish influence, Kemalists and other centrists fear its de jure partition and the emergence of a Kurdish state – for which they would blame Erdoğan. Over the past week, both sides have sought to amplify the evidence that supports their position and bury that which contradicts it. The real picture, however, is more complex. There is still significant uncertainty about who is calling the shots in Syria, and the most crucial information might take years to emerge. The following should therefore be read as an initial sketch of Turkey’s role in the events, subject to modification as new details come to light. But one thing is already certain at this early stage: though the balance of forces has shifted in Erdoğan’s favour for the time being, we can comfortably say that Erdoğanist fantasies about a Turkish imperial restructuring of the region are unfounded.

Michael Young at Carnegie’s Diwan:

Once a president is elected, Lebanon will require a new government. As the different political forces craft a policy statement, one of the first obstacles they will face is whether to reproduce the “Army, People, Resistance” triptych. It seems a near certainty that a number of participants in the government will refuse to sign off on such a statement again. The Lebanese Forces will definitely not do so, and it’s hard to believe that any Sunni prime minister will agree to it, particularly in a communal climate that feels resurgent after Bashar al-Assad’s downfall. Why would Sunnis, who feel a new buoyancy after decades of domination by an Alawite-led regime in Damascus, supported by Shiite forces throughout the region, feel any impetus to forego an opportunity to limit Hezbollah’s margin of maneuver?

Melissa Hancock at Semafor: “China Wins $202M Excavation Contract in Riyadh as Saudi Construction Booms.”

Tehran Times: “Iran's Pezeshkian, Egypt's al-Sisi Eye on ‘Full Restoration of Ties’.”