Escalating clashes between herders and farmers in Nigeria threaten the country’s national and food security. A response based on innovation, sustainability and political will is urgently needed.
Members of the Senegalese anti-government youth movement Y'en a Marre (We’re Fed Up), in Dakar.
Reuters/Joe Penney
The gun attack at a hotel marks another bloody chapter in West Africa’s fight against Islamist militancy.
Without the perfect-storm conditions of post-invasion insurgency, this most potent expression of al-Qaedaism yet would never have risen to dominate both the Middle East and the world in the way that it does.
Reuters/Stringer
The final article of our series on the historical roots of Islamic State examines the role recent Western intervention in the Middle East played in the group’s inexorable rise.
A tank recaptured from Boko Haram.
Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye
Well Santa has come and gone, at least for the largest proportion of the world’s population. And, as we reach the end of the year, it is inevitably time to review recent trends and the prospects for 2016…
In Egypt, the Great Pyramid was illuminated with the French, Russian and Lebanese flags in solidarity with victims of terrorist attacks, but most of the focus in the West has been on the victims in Paris.
EPA/Khaled Elfiqi
Selective sympathy raises troubling questions. If you neglect suffering in other places, it is much more difficult to mobilise political actors to take it seriously.
The opening ceremony of an exercise organized by the US military in Ndjamena, Chad earlier this year to take on Boko Haram.
Reuters/Emmanuel Braun
Apart from numerous worldwide threats including from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, the US is taking more notice of Africa due to the expansion of extremist organisations on the continent.
Islamic State is symptomatic of a disturbed and troubled social order. The vast crisis of dislocated people and communities is being expressed in anger, intolerance and perverted notions of honour.
The dogmas of ruling and rebel groups in Africa conflate political conflict and spirituality.
Reuters/Alain Amontchi
The failure of African states to adequately address their racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and economic differences provided the fertile ground on which rebel groups now prosper.
Many Nigerians have been displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency.
Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde
The failures of the African Union raise serious questions about when to deploy its security apparatus in general and the Africa Standby Force in particular.
Some of the 700 women freed from Boko Haram.
EPA/Nigerian Army
Hundreds of women rescued from the Nigerian Islamist group are pregnant after being held in sexual slavery.
When Australians hear about Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s dire warnings and counter-terrorism raids, they could lose historical perspective on the threat posed by Islamic State.
AAP/Mal Fairclough
Dire government warnings and counter-terrorism raids in our suburbs paint a picture of the worst threat Western nations have ever faced. A little historical perspective is in order.
Muhammadu Buhari and his with vice president, Yemi Osibajo, must fix the economy if they want security.
EPA/STR
What appears to be a peaceful transference of presidential power in Nigeria – unprecedented in the country’s history – has global significance in the fight against cultist jihadism.
The 2015 elections in Nigeria were chaotic, but the country’s voters displayed immense courage in showing up at all. More than 20 people were killed, not in electoral violence between competing parties…
Damage from a Boko Haram bomb in Maiduguiri that claimed 51 lives.
EPA/Deji Yake
Professor of Francophone Studies (Africa, Caribbean), Faculty Affiliate with Africana Studies, World Literature Program and Human Rights Pracice, University of Arizona