Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 8/8/2025
News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East
Last week’s links are here.
Sahel and West Africa
Mauritania attended the first humanitarian forum of the Alliance of Sahel States.
Youssoupha Sane, at Seneweb, covers Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko’s trip to Turkey - and his request for President Recep Erdoğan’s help as Senegal navigates a financial crisis.
Mali’s Reconciliation Minister - and core junta member - Ismaël Wagué - denies that there is a policy of targeting the Peul ethnic group amid the ongoing Sahelian jihadist insurgency.
Guillaume Maurice at France24: “‘A Disaster’: The Russian Group Africa Corps Suffers Its First Defeat in Mali.”
International Federation of Journalists:
On 2 August, the Higher Council for Communication (CSC), the broadcast media regulatory body in Burkina Faso, suspended Radio Omega’s broadcasting licence for three months for calling the military government “a junta”, which means a military government that has taken power by force. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns this travesty of media freedom — which is designed to intimidate the media — in the strongest terms and urges authorities to halt its systematic pattern of repression against the press.
Bakers went on strike this week in Niger.
International Crisis Group: “An Electoral Puzzle: Handling Côte d’Ivoire’s High-risk Poll.”
Ope Adetayo at the Associated Press: “Helicopter Crash in Ghana Kills Ministers of Defense and Environment and 6 Others.”
Eniola Akinkuotu for the Africa Report: “Nigeria: Who Is Bashir Haske, the Man at the Centre of NNPC Boss Ojulari’s Troubles?”
Shola Lawal at Al Jazeera:
On June 12 this year, Nigeria’s Democracy Day, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu pardoned [activist Ken] Saro-Wiwa and the others – the Ogoni Nine as they had become known. He went on to call them heroes and awarded them prestigious national titles.
For Saro-Wiwa’s daughter Noo Saro-Wiwa, who is now aged 49, and other relatives of the executed men, the pardons were moving but insufficient. In Ogoniland, it reopened old wounds that remained as deep as when they were first inflicted all those years ago.
Carol Valade for Le Monde: “Lake Chad Residents Caught between Boko Haram and Rising Waters.”
North Africa
The latest issue of the Journal of North African Studies includes seven articles in a special section on the Western Sahara.
Mustapha Sehimi at Maroc360: “Morocco at Two Speeds” - on social and regional inequalities in the country.
A heat wave strikes Morocco, particularly the center and the south.
Algeria is importing more and exporting less.
In the wake of a public transport strike in Tunisia, a crowd of around 100 people tried to storm the headquarters of the Tunisian General Labor Union.
Reuters: “Libya's NOC Signs Memorandum of Understanding with ExxonMobil after Decade of Inactivity.”
Greater Horn of Africa
Eve Sampson with Abdalrahman Altayeb at the New York Times: “‘Bad Things Happen in Darkness’: Sudan’s Civil War Shifts West.”
Samy Magdy for the Associated Press:
A Sudanese airstrike hit an airport in the country’s Darfur region controlled by a notorious paramilitary group, destroying a suspected Emirati military aircraft and killing dozens of suspected mercenaries, Sudanese officials and a rebel adviser said Thursday.
Wednesday’s strike on the Nyala airport killed at least 40 suspected mercenaries from Colombia and destroyed a shipment of arms and equipment that were sent by the United Arab Emirates to the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, according to two Sudanese military officials and an adviser to a Darfur rebel leader allied with RSF.
Reuters: “Sudan Says UAE Bars Sudanese Planes from Landing at Its Airports.”
Al Jazeera: “MSF ‘Overwhelmed’ in Ethiopia’s Southwest Following Aid Cuts.”
Omar Faruk for the Associated Press: “Somalia’s Camel Milk Revolution Is Improving Nutrition and Creating Jobs.”
Abdifatah Ismael Tahir at The Conversation: “Somalia’s Education Crisis: Why So Few Children Attend School and What Could Be Done to Change That.”
Bloomberg: “Starlink Is Losing Subscribers in Once-Thriving Kenyan Market.”
Julie Huehnken at DW: “Kenya, Africa’s Home of Country Music.”
Kersten Knipp for DW: “Red Sea Death Trap: Why So Many Migrants Drown.”
Mashriq
An anonymous correspondent from Gaza, writing at UN News: “First Person: Documenting Despair and Finding Hope amidst the Rubble of Gaza.”
Ezra Nahmad at OrientXXI:
The occupation of Palestine is undergoing a brutal military shift. The deployment of force against the Palestinians seems to know no limit: starving Gaza, parching the West Bank, carrying out ethnic cleansing. And yet. Based on the collective complicity of a divided Israeli society, revealing the fragility of the Power, this violence of the Israeli state could backfire on it.
Rushdi Abualouf for the BBC: “The Secret System Hamas Uses to Pay Government Salaries.”
On the Lebanese government’s attempt to disarm Hezbollah, and the reaction from Hezbollah, see BBC Arabic, L’Orient le Jour, and Carnegie’s Diwan.
Margaux MacCall at the San Francisco Standard:
Brett McGurk has served in national security roles for the last four presidents, negotiating ceasefires in Gaza, leading a global coalition to fight ISIS, and fighting for warmer relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
But these days, he’s more likely to be shepherding venture capitalists and CEOs through the Middle East, striking multibillion-dollar AI deals with the region’s authoritarian leaders.
Anagha Nair at New Lines Magazine: “How a Hospital Became a Battleground in Syria.”
Mirette Magdy at Bloomberg: “IMF Says Saudi Arabia Has Cut Spending Enough Even If Oil Slides.”
Manal Albarakati at Semafor:
Kuwait is reportedly planning to invest up to 50 billion dinars ($164 billion) in major regional projects, with Saudi Arabia expected to be a top destination…The potential decision is a boon for Saudi Arabia, which aims to attract $100 billion in annual foreign direct investment by 2030. That target may prove elusive given current levels of FDI, with only around $20 billion brought in last year. Gulf investors, however, are key: The UAE is the largest investor in the kingdom.
Salem Alhajraf at the LSE Middle East Blog: “Subsidy Reform in the State of Kuwait.”
Faryaneh Fadaeiresketi at the New Humanitarian: “Refugees without Refuge: Afghans in Iran.”