Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 4/4/2025
News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East
Sahel and West Africa
Guinea will hold a constitutional referendum on September 21, a step in its potential transition back to civilian rule.
Also in Guinea, a (in my view repellant) pardon for former military leader Moussa Dadis Camara.
The AP’s Jack Thompson:
In 2021, the Senegalese village of Niéti Yone welcomed investors Frank Timis and Gora Seck from a U.S.-registered company, African Agriculture. Over cups of sweet green tea, the visitors promised to employ hundreds of locals and, one day, thousands.
[…]
Now, security guards patrol the land’s barbed-wire perimeter, blocking herders and farmers from using it. The company has been delisted.
In Mauritania, anti-slavery activists are decrying the detention of one of their own, Warda Ahmed Souleimane. More here.
Algeria destroyed a Malian drone that, Algeria says, entered Algerian airspace.
Burkinabè officials are accusing thirty-two individuals, some of them journalists and politicians, of consorting with terrorists.
Niger’s military authorities freed some detained members of the past administration, including former Petroleum Minister Sani Issoufou (son of former President Mahamadou Issoufou), but did not release the country’s immediate past President Mohamed Bazoum.
Nkechi Ogbonna and Wedaeli Chibelushi for the BBC: “Nigeria's president has appointed Bayo Ojulari - a former Shell executive - to lead the state-owned oil company, as part of sweeping reforms aimed at cleaning up the sector dogged by allegations of corruption, pollution and decades-long inefficiency.”
Reuters: “The World Bank said on Wednesday it had approved a total of $1.08 billion in concessional financing for Nigeria to enhance education quality, build household and community resilience, and improve nutrition for underserved groups.”
United Nations officials visited Chad to discuss disarmament, demobilization, reinsertion, and reintegration in Lake Province.
North Africa
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone in a slight thaw between their two governments, although core differences remain unresolved.
At OrientXXI, Jean-Pierre Sereni on the vast profits at stake in Algeria’s informal economy.
Reuters: “IMF Approves 2-Year $4.5 Billion Flexible Credit Line Arrangement for Morocco.”
In Tunisia, President Kais Saied is frustrated with the civil service and what he sees as its slow speed in carrying out his projects.
Libya Observer: “Over 461,000 Registered for the Second Phase of Municipal Elections.”
Greater Horn of Africa
Nesrine Malik at The Guardian: “The siege of Khartoum has lifted. Left behind are scenes of unimaginable horror.”
Doctors Without Borders on why they instituted a cash transfer program in Darfur. “Although this kind of program is common among other international NGOs, it is an unusual initiative for MSF, as we generally focus on providing medical care.” Basically, cash transfers let them “stabilize” schools by helping children eat and focus.
Coley Gray at Africa Is a Country:
Hustle is the mindset that drives equally a street hawker peddling floor mops to earn the shillings to scrape by for another day as it does the daughters of Kenya’s political elite trying to rehabilitate a downtown colonial-legacy public library. How to Build a Library, a documentary that premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, follows two women, publisher Angela Wachuka and author Wanjiru “Shiro” Koinange, on just such an undertaking.
Amnesty International: “Kenya: Meta Can Be Sued in Kenya for Role in Ethiopia Conflict.”
Yusuf Ahmad at Geeska: “Somalia Needs a Good Mayor Not a President.”
Mashriq
Daren Butler for Reuters: “In Turkey's Kurdish Heartland, Distrust Erodes Peace Process Hopes.”
CNN’s Lauren Izso, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Ibrahim Dahman and Pauline Lockwood: “Netanyahu says Israel is now dividing up Gaza. What does that mean on the ground?”
Reuters: “Israel Steps up Syria Strikes, Says Turkey Aims for 'Protectorate'.”
Sam Heller for the Century Foundation: “Cross-Border Shuffle: Refugee Movement Between Lebanon and Syria after Assad.”
Christina Goldbaum and Reham Mourshed for the New York Times: “These Militias Refuse to Join Syria’s New Army.”
Adam Baron in New Lines Magazine, reporting from southern Yemen:
Most people in Aden have little, if any, affinity for the Houthis. The city still bears the scars from battles to repel the group’s attacks in 2015; its skyline is still dominated by the shells of once-glistening seaside hotels that were wrecked by ground fighting and airstrikes. A decade of U.N.-led peace talks has done little to convince many residents of Aden that the Houthis no longer constitute an existential threat. For backers of the secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC), whose forces effectively control the city’s security structure, the group represents a particularly aggressive example of northern dominance and demonstrates the need for South Yemen to reemerge as independent. Those who support Yemen’s continued unity tend to be just as pessimistic about any potential peace with the group, citing its hard-line religious ideology and autocratic governance.
Susannah George at the Washington Post: “Saudi Arabia Emerges as Key Hub for Trump’s Foreign Policy Ambitions.”
David Belcher for the New York Times: “A Remote Spot in Saudi Arabia That Won’t Be Remote for Long.”
At Middle East Eye, an excerpt from Prof. Hamid Dabashi’s new book Iran in Revolt.